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California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

• dang 6y ago
  All: please note that there are more comments on page 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083&p=2. (That's what the 'More' links at the bottom of large threads point to)
• sahin-boydas 6y ago
  I heard way worse stories than this.
  • oliTwist23 6y ago
    Wish they would investigate Apple as well.
  • agustamir 6y ago
    story time?
• duxup 6y ago
  >At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states. I wouldn't expect HR to side with the lower level employee as generally HR groups are there to protect the company.... but I would wonder what their findings were that found it wasn't illegal.
  • hef19898 6y ago
    Some master-level mental acrobatics I assume? Because, if you work really hard to convince yourself, a caste is neither race (at least for white folks, all castes are Indian aren't they), nor Religion (they are all Hindu, right?) or sex (as long as you don't distinguish between men and women). So everything is fine, and we (HR), don't have to do anything, case closed, back to lunch. Happy to see the thing blowing up, so. EDIT: Fixed Hindi to Hindu
    • saagarjha 6y ago
      Nit: Hindi is a language, a Hindu is a person who practices Hinduism
      • hef19898 6y ago
        Thanks! I knew there had to be something wrong in there!
  • hlieberman 6y ago
    This is the buried lede in the article: they didn't deny the allegations, simply determined that it wasn't illegal (!)
    • trhway 6y ago
      >simply determined that it wasn't illegal (!) juxtaposing with >Cisco’s workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other high castes. well, wolves determined that eating lambs is ok :)
    • ViViDboarder 6y ago
      Well, retaliation is illegal even if they believed the initial complained wasn’t illegal. Of course, discrimination is bad for businesses and they should have taken action against the managers anyway.
    • csunbird 6y ago
      so, mobbing is not illegal in the US?
  • NikkiA 6y ago
    I'm guessing they concluded that the employee's caste is neither race nor national origin. But I'd expect the state to argue that discrimination against an indian caste is inherently national origin based discrimination since they're unlikely to treat any non-indian as they would a dalit, and even if they did they'd be then discriminating on the national identity of the non-indian (ie, treating non-dalit indians better) OR treating all other indians as bad as they'd treat the dalit indian (unlikely, since Iyer is indian)
    • thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > 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.)
      • manquer 6y ago
        there is racial discrimination in India on top of caste discrimination. People from the north eastern part of the country look more "asian" than "indian" folks in the south look different and darker, both groups especially Asian looking citizens are heavily discriminated against.
    • SamReidHughes 6y ago
      Exactly. It would be like discriminating against black people but only those named after somebody on our (USA's) currency.
  • ViViDboarder 6y ago
    This didn’t protect the company very well... someone in HR ought to catch the flack on this too. Discrimination is bad for businesses. Not just if it hits the press, but those employees being discriminated against aren’t going to be as productive as those being encouraged. Fire bad managers. HR works for the company, not middle management.
    • hef19898 6y ago
      HR seems to work as much for the powers to be and the status-quo as they do for the "company". As one German career consultant famously said: "Companies don't have interests, people do. And the most important people for your career are your managers". As much as I hate tjyis statement, for all practical purposes it is true. Very short-sighted, as almost all big business scandals show. But still true.
    • treis 6y ago
      >Fire bad managers. HR works for the company, not middle management. HR doesn't have a way of seeing the discrimination happening. The managers say X candidate is good so they get hired and then they get promoted because the managers give them good reviews. HR can't tell if the candidate/employee is actually good because they rely on the managers for that. And it's very dangerous waters for them to start making accusations about discrimination in hiring. Both because it can be seen as targetting the managers based on their race and admitting that the company is discriminatory in hiring. I also don't know how it was at Cisco, but my first job all the lead developers except for one was Indian. How can you punish them if they're all doing the same thing? You can't exactly fire all your leads and if you punish one you risk them all quitting. And is it really bad for business? Indians make up a huge part of the IT landscape. If the majority want to discriminate then you can either hire them or the smaller pool of people that don't. Most companies will choose the first. Often they don't even know they're making that choice. They hire one and then that person recruits from their network and is the gatekeeper for other hires. If that person discriminates on caste they will likely hire others that do as well.
  • samfisher83 6y ago
    If I was HR why wouldn't you just fire the manager and move on. I mean whether it was legal or illegal the optics look terrible.
    • dragonwriter 6y ago
      > If I was HR why wouldn't you just fire the manager and move on. Because HR generally doesn't have arbitrary hiring and firing power, and because their job in most firms is to protect, first, the company bottom line from unacceptable risk of legal liability for employment actions and, second, the company’s management (who presumably are looking out for the bottom line in other ways).
      • samfisher83 6y ago
        It would seem to me to reduce the risk you fire the manager.
        • saagarjha 6y ago
          Depends. The manager can always turn around and come after you, and usually managers have more investment put into them so if you look at it from just a numerical perspective it might be worse to do so.
        • dragonwriter 6y ago
          Reducing risks regardless of level isn't HRs job, and something which is neither an explicitly protected category or one which there is case law identifying.as implicitly within the ambit of one of the explicit categories isn't a concern.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• systemvoltage 6y ago
  I don’t understand. If “caste” is something specific to country of India, and if it is not explicitly listed in US law; can the defendant just claim it to be a more generalized version discrimination? It’s like going to a barber shop and they won’t cut your hair because they discriminate based on your accent. It’s discrimination regardless even though it’s not explicitly listed in the law. As far as the US law is concerned, caste system of India is completely arbitrary just like the accent or the color of your clothes or whatever.
  • 29athrowaway 6y ago
    I guess this would be a form of religious discrimination, because it's discrimination based on religious beliefs.
    • systemvoltage 6y ago
      That makes sense. I am curious how would the court respond to discrimination based on, say, tattoos on their forehead? Extreme example to make a point.
      • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        That would be solidly legal, I'd guess. At least under federal law. Discrimination is just the preference of one thing over another. It is not illegal. What is illegal is racial, religious, sex, etc. discrimination.
      • badrabbit 6y ago
        Not the same thing, if you chose to be a member of caste or it had nothing to do with your anceatory then your comparison would hold true. But even if you said "curly haired people can't work here" that would be racial descrimination. The term race can mean different things in different cultures but the reasonable person's understanding would be ancestoral grouping of people based on physiological characteristic such as skin color. Consider how east asians can sometimes have skin whiter than scandanavians but their race is still asian. Or how brown skinned southern europeans can be white while similarly skin-toned north africans are excluded from whiteness.
• js8 6y ago
  Maybe somebody can clarify this for me. It seems that there is a difference in American and European laws about discrimination, where U.S. has a concept of protected groups (i.e. they explicitly enumerate who is not to be discriminated), while EU has laws based on equality of the groups (or more generally, humans). It seems to me that the American system is more antagonistic, in the sense it really prefers some groups (or classes) to another. And this causes more issues (and more resentment). Am I understanding this right?
  • tathougies 6y ago
    Can you explain the EU law? If a man applied to be a girl's PE teacher that would be in a locker room, is that allowed? Certainly not, right? The US allows discrimination in general as long as it's not based on membership in certain groups, unless such membership is germaine to the job. So you could limit gender in my PE teacher example, but you can't for a crossing guard (because presumably, anyone can be a crossing guard but sex matters for PE teaching). Used PE teaching because I can't think of a better example.
    • justaguy88 6y ago
      Why would any PE teacher enter the locker room, that seems odd regardless of gender.
      • tathougies 6y ago
        That was my attempt at a good example. Certainly you must admit there are occupations where gender matters? Like prison guard?
    • slim 6y ago
      A better example would be casting for a film. You can definitely cast only Aryan men for a Nazi role. That would be reasonable and the law permits that. Generally speaking cases of discrimination are settled in court and judges have the latitude to, well, judge.
  • systemvoltage 6y ago
• usaar333 6y ago
  > lawsuit found that 67% of Dalits surveyed felt treated unfairly at their U.S. workplaces. I'm more surprised 67% of Dalits would have coworkers knowing their caste. Can someone give context on how this happens?
  • swrj 6y ago
    They usually have different surnames or they might have volunteered that information to their coworkers.
  • rudiv 6y ago
    If you're raised in India, it is relatively easy to determine someone's general (varna) caste and specific (jati) caste from their familial name(s) and/or physical appearance. You can pick these things up by osmosis from adults (my case), through being taught, or simply through caste-influenced culture. It's quite complicated, and I'm not an expert. You don't even have to be Hindu to be a part of the caste system - Muslims and Christians may retain a familial name that is a marker of caste; in some cases, even without a name as a marker someone who knows of your particular community may be able to tell what caste a non-Hindu is simply by knowing what community you're from and being able to tell what caste that community is historically.
    • paloaltokid 6y ago
      > it is relatively easy to determine someone's general (varna) caste and specific (jati) caste from their familial name(s) and/or physical appearance. Is this because people from a specific caste tend to concentrate in a specific geographic region? I've learned as a Westerner that there's no model I've grown up with that's really the best for making sense of India as someone who wasn't born there. What makes the most sense to me is what an Indian colleague told me - "think of it as the United States of Europe -- that many languages, that much diversity, that much complexity and problems."
      • youeseh 6y ago
        No, not geographic. Unlike ethnicity or color, the caste system is racial discrimination based on profession. In old Indian kingdoms, there were warriors, priests, teachers, business people, janitors etc. The caste system basically puts a social value on each of these with priests (who were also teachers) being at the top. The problem is, you couldn't just choose to be a priest.. or a warrior.. or a janitor. You were born into the profession. You were a janitor because your father was a janitor and his father before him. Discriminating based on caste for the purposes of education, work, government services, etc.. has been outlawed in the Indian constitution since 1948. It still happens, because people are people, but less so with each generation.
• perl4ever 6y ago
  An interesting article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India Also, https://minorityrights.org/minorities/dalits/ https://minorityrights.org/minorities/dalits/
• yalogin 6y ago
  > Like other large Silicon Valley employers, Cisco’s workforce includes thousands of Indian immigrants, most of whom were born Brahmins or other high castes. This seems too important to just throw in unsubstantiated. I have never seen this kind of statistic.
  • virtuous_signal 6y ago
    One could probably extrapolate from the statistic mentioned in the article (below). It seems plausible that the US visa system ends up taking in more people of high castes. >In 2003, only 1.5 percent of Indian immigrants in the United States were Dalits or members of lower castes, according to the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. More than 90 percent were from high or dominant castes. About 2.5 million people of Indian descent live in the country, including those born here.
  • rudiv 6y ago
    It may be surprising or disconcerting to you, but it is an assumption that is usually borne out - I don't have figures for you, so I can't speak to this specific case. It is well documented that access to education, wealth, and most other factors that determine whether an Indian can emigrate to America for a highly-skilled job are extremely skewed in favour of the forward castes.
    • paloaltokid 6y ago
      I was told by a colleague that most Indian folks you meet in tech in the Bay Area are the 1 percenters of India. Is that kind of what you're saying here as well?
      • manquer 6y ago
        They are certainly now, if they are were not before. Mobility like depends on opportunities you get, that starts from your parents social-economic status, the schools you attend, the connections your family has etc if you grew up in a city or a small town. Caste strongly correlates with this, children of higher caste families tend to be richer or have rich relative, have extended family working in well connected places, have well educated parents and grand parents and have access to better schools.
• hartator 6y ago
  > but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018 How this shit is legal.
  • jojobas 6y ago
    Calm down with your cultural imperialism. /s Seriously though, would something as foreign to US be a protected class?
  • sk0g 6y ago
    Moreso, it's not yet illegal because the problem is an imported one entirely.
  • awakeasleep 6y ago
    To give you a concise answer, USA Federal law only prohibits discrimination based on the following characteristics: Race. Color. Religion or creed. National origin or ancestry. Sex. Age. Physical or mental disability. Veteran status. Genetic information. Citizenship. Anything else you can think of is a legal reason to discriminate
    • ardit33 6y ago
      you could argue that caste, is a combination of color+religion+origin/ancestry combo... it has a racial + religion + ancestry undertone.... i.e. it is something you are 'born into'.
      • hef19898 6y ago
        Sure. But maybe to complex for most people. And more often than not, people seem to be quite happy with excuses to not do anything.
    • manquer 6y ago
      I would say caste is ancestry based discrimination
• paloaltokid 6y ago
  I'm a very white guy living in California and I often get the impression that caste is something that Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people. On some level it feels to me like it's something Indian folks don't share because they feel it would be misunderstood (which makes a lot of sense). Or maybe it's a kind of "not airing out the laundry in public." I would love feedback on this. Thanks.
  • castequestion 6y ago
    As a non-Indian person living in the US, I have wondered about this. What role does caste still play in the year 2020? And, specifically, in middle-class society in the US and in India? Does it play any role in tech companies in India?
    • eqtn 6y ago
      Tech, Startups where I have worked had no such discrimination Marriage, If it's an arranged marriage 99.9% of the time, bride and groom will be of same caste.
    • pseudonymousgun 6y ago
      It still exists in 2020. People who live in cities at least don't face it directly - its always indirect, implicit, subtle and ruthless. People who live in Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and in villages / panchayats - the caste based discrimination is very obvious and explicit. People wear their (upper) caste as a badge of honor all the while discriminating lower caste people openly with no consequences, although the Indian constitution considers all citizens equal.
  • ramraj07 6y ago
    I have experienced caste-based "weirdness" of a slightly different flavor - I look like a brahmin (the highest caste), but am not one. Every once in a while I'll meet some indian-origin guy who's brahmin who will come ask me if I am okay with eating that tortilla since it contains lard. Once I let it deliberately slip that I'm not in-fact brahmin, they will be like, "oh" and change topics. The oh always sounds to me like, "oh, I thought you belonged to the ubermensh Aryan class but you don't so I guess I don't care about your depraved ways!" - sounds like an exaggeration but I have worked too long with too many of these people to be confident that this is what they think. The most rewarding thing for me is when I tell that all my exes were brahmin (it's a trope that they're pissed all their women are being stolen by lower caste men). Also all of this in the US; it's almost like many indian origin American (even second gen) Brahmins are far more racist than the general Indian population of the same group. Definitely a lesson in anthropology for sure.
• randomguy2379 6y ago
  I am someone who was born a hindu dalit and I am so ashamed of sharing that identity of mine that I am posting anonymously. For someone wondering what the Hindu caste system is, here is a primer. Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that you are a lower caste, you will be made fun of and ridiculed. Caste is also tied to your last name, so when a Hindu person says his full name he is telling his First name and his Caste. Which is why brahmins will be the first ones in a group to say their full name, while dalits will only meekly say their first name. The entire religion and caste system was built to make people feel shameful of their last name. In fact, some last names of lower castes are commonly used as abuses by upper caste. It is the worst form of discrimination known to man and it's horrible how hindu society openly supports and promotes it. While slavery lasted only for a couple of hundred years, caste system has been going on for millennia. Dalit atrocities are common in India even today and everyday 10s of lower castes dalits are raped, killed , tortured and humiliated just because they were born a lower caste Hindu. Upper caste hindu managers openly look down on lower caste hindus, even in the US , and will discriminate against them. Caste shame is also inbuilt in a lot of Dalit hindus and they themselves feel embarrassed while even saying their full name. One of the best things I did after coming to this country was to convert to christianity and a few of my dalit hindu friends have done too. Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal, but they would still regard a hindu dalit as inferior. Hinduism has a huge conversion problem even in India, and it is the fastest shrinking religion in the world.
  • rgrs 6y ago
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11229170 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11229170 Stop attacking Hinduism from new throwaway ID. Caste is beyond religion in India
    • randomguy2379 6y ago
      Remnants of Hinduism. These incidents do happen, but they are rare and almost non-existent compared to Hinduism. Churches openly hold discussions on how all humans are equal.Also Jesus was born in a poor family, which would have made him a lower caste hindu if he was born in India If caste is beyond religion in India, then why did Ambedkar leave Hinduism and urge all of his followers to do so. Can you tell me one other religion which has the concept of caste in religious scriptures?
• throwaway010720 6y ago
  I am an Indian and this is one of the reasons I didn't move to US (among other reasons). My own brother is part of an Indian clique, which is, believe it or not exclusive only to members of our own caste. He has been living in US for almost 20 years and all his friends are from our own caste. It bothers me that Indians in US follow all these customs and superstitions blindly after being so educated and having travelled the world. But then moving to California doesn't mean travelling the world of course.
  • AdrianB1 6y ago
    Maybe I misunderstood you, but moving in USA just to have most or all the friends from your own country is not emigrating, it moving part of India in US. It is usually expected that when you emigrate you blend in with the country where you emigrated, bringing with you cultural diversity, not creating ethnic bubbles.
• castevictim 6y ago
  Readers who are not from Indian subcontinent may find this difficult to understand or beleive, let me throw some context. Indian caste system is probably the longest running abuse,racism, human rights violation in the human history. Even,now in some parts of the country people from lowest caste are made to carry human waste on their head[0]. After independence,thanks to rights offered by constitution & reservation by governments to repent the sins; many from lower caste were able to get educated. Inequality is often perpertraited by people at the top of the food chain and in the case of caste system its been Brahmins and those acknowledged by them. Brahmin patriarchy is the deep state in India, do a quick search about top CEOs in India, Majority of Company auditors are Brahmins so the company/tax laws are often dictated by them (I just stated one example of brahmin patriarchy w.r.t context of the article). Ask the lower caste team members of any large IT company in India e.g. TCS, Infosys led by a Brahmin manager(who is not an atheist); you'll hear about discrimination they face. At the same time, Ex.Brahmins (Brahmins who have denounced their affiliation to caste system) have been one of the top voices in support of human rights & equality this includes freedom fighters, newspaper publishers, several leading luminaries, economists, Nobel laureates and top scientists who have left India for good. [0]https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/25/india-caste-forced-clean-human-waste https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/25/india-caste-forced-clean...
  • luckylion 6y ago
    > Ask the lower caste team members of any large IT company in India e.g. TCS, Infosys led by a Brahmin manager(who is not an atheist); you'll hear about discrimination they face. Is the religious component that large? I'd assume that it's simple ingroup/outgroup, like most discrimination. You don't need to believe that your group is special by divine ruling, you just need to believe that you'll get a better personal outcome if you strengthen people that are like you, as they'll hopefully do the same for you.
    • castevictim 6y ago
      Good question, this needs dwelling deep into the ideology of caste system. 1. Like many other religion, basis of caste system in Hinduism is that lower caste people came from supposedly less important organ & upper caste people came from more important organs. 2. People from upper caste perform cushy jobs, have access to education and all amenities. People from lower caste literally have to carry shit of upper caste people on their head. Obviously caste is hereditory! Now any tell that to anyone who says 'Hinduism is not a religion', they would say 'Caste system was not hereditory, but way of job management'; but they will have no answer or tell a lame excuse when you ask them "Why caste attrocity exists till date, would you help uprooting caste system and make it illegal? or better will you let your son/daughter marry a lower caste person?" And there are people who staunchly believe in the caste system as the core of their belief system, so much so that honor killings happen even in western countries by people of Indian/Subcontinent origin; Yes honor killings happen in India almost every other day. So yeah, casteism cannot be taken apart from religion/ideology.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• thickice 6y ago
  I am an Indian and have been in US for many years. There is one thing I have noticed among brahmins, during their Naturalization process many of them change their last names to Iyer or Iyengar (two sects of Brahmins). I am referring to guys from the southern part of India where I am from. Its not a common practice there. My interpretation of this is these folks have a perceived sense of superiority feeling about their caste and having it in the last name is a form of boasting. In South India there has been a social movement in the last few decades to allocate quotas for "lower" caste members in universities and govt jobs to stop the domination of brahmins (merits, or lack there of, of the quota system is whole different topic). So having Iyer or Iyergar as last name would be frowned upon/judged endlessly there. May be they feel a sense of freedom here in US that prompts this behavior.
  • sbmthakur 6y ago
    The quota system is actually called 'reservation' and it's not specific to South India. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India Though the percentage of the seats reserved varies with each state.
    • Bang2Bay 6y ago
      the atrocity is prevalent in the entire nation?!
  • clothesline 6y ago
    The social movement started several years ago. Its called the quota system and it has been enforced at various levels of government jobs and education. People just get promoted with no regard to their actual performance in all kinds of government jobs. This type of reservation on the basis of caste is regressive. What about someone who is supposedly from a "higher" caste but is still not economically well-off. Such people have to work much harder than their counterparts who receive concessions on their performance. Once you are in the university this doesn't stop. For most government universities the fees are different for people from reserved, non-reserved categories - meaning that someone from a poor background but with "higher" caste label has to work harder for opportunities for education and also has to bear a financial burden once you cross these hurdles. Think from the perspective of a middle class "higher" caste member of society - why should someone like that bear the high tax burden of the country when their kids won't receive much of the benefits. Any talk of scaling back this historical policy screw-up (Mandal comission report / VP Singh government) is vehemently put down. Just look up how the previous government reacted when doctors protested against the extension of caste-based reservation to postgraduate medical education. This is not even partisan. Even in current government one politician said something similar in very derogatory terms leading to him losing in the elections. Reservation should be granted on the basis of economic condition only because the point is economic upliftment. There should be policy that grants economic parity but I don't think the country has resources for satiating revenge.
• walt0 6y ago
  I live and work in India and I would like to throw more light on this. Me and my friends like to joke around that you will never get your dues, either pay raise or promotions unless you have the last names jain, gupta, sharma, verma. I had a guy on my team who was very capable but did not have the right last name, he was being harassed for promotions for 4-5 years. On the other hand the manager class was entirely "jain, gupta, sharma, verma". I know of a specific case where the same manager had one of his relatives transferred from another branch and then promoted to manager on a different team in the same branch. This was all very hush-hush, I know of it because I overheard them talking about it. This is not some local tidbit software company, this is a company you HAVE heard about. But it is not just caste based discrimination. There's also linguistic and region based discrimination because there is a lot of regional and linguistic diversity in India. If you travel a few hundred miles in any direction, the language and culture completely change. I have seen teams being formed around states and languages, and they will not let anyone else come into their in group. I have seen teams with extreme left ideologies that will not let anyone else in their team. I don't believe dalits are any different, they also engange in these practices when they can and I know about people who have suffered from that situation as well. Everyone's naked in this bath house.
  • sbmthakur 6y ago
    No surprise there. Nepotism, casteism and regionalism are widespread at certain companies in India.
    • entha_saava 6y ago
      Not to forget extreme nationalism.
  • peroporque 6y ago
    Couldn't people just change their last name? I imagine if suddenly everyone's last name was Gupta, that kind of discrimination would become difficult.
    • hef19898 6y ago
• zlorch 6y ago
  -
  • dang 6y ago
    Nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• LatteLazy 6y ago
  It sounds like cisco found discrimination but decided that it wasn't technically illegal and therefore to let it continue. Whether they end up being correct on the legality, that's very shitty behaviour.
• rutherblood 6y ago
  wherever Indians go they take caste with them. You can't wipe out your caste even if you change your religion, name, financial situation, country, what-have-you, marry. Indians are a fucked up bunch. Let them become a non-minority in your country and the tribalist mentality will penetrate everywhere without anyone even noticing
  • dang 6y ago
    Nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN. It's remarkable how good this thread has managed to be, given the difficulty of the topic. Please let's not spoil that. Edit: by the way, from your other comments in this thread I gather that you're probably Indian, or from an Indian family, and you're mostly expressing your personal experiences and frustrations. This of course is not at all the same thing as outside prejudice, and we're always mindful of the difference in such cases. The trouble is, the internet can't tell the difference. If you post like this, your comment is indistinguishable from that of a racist or nationalist person who just has a problem with Indians. I'm sure you'd be the first to object to comments coming from that ugly place. So if you're going to post on these topics, we need you to include enough information to disambiguate your intent, and also make the post more personal and less of a general denunciation. The general principle is: since a comment's impact on future discussion is determined by how others hear it, the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate intent. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20burden%20disambiguate&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
• idontcare634 6y ago
  As a former employee of Cisco and having been in the Silicon Valley for 10+ years, I can say that I have witnessed extreme casteism and nepotism in Cisco. There was a saying I heard a few years back that one of the criteria to get hired in one of the Cisco guaranteed acquisition spinoffs is that you wear a thread (called Janeu - worn by high caste Hindus over their shoulder and hidden inside shirt). If there is one company in the valley where HR is totally absent and managers form a clique to abuse employees, it is Cisco. It is polluting the entire valley with its casteism and also by exporting its incompetent managers to other companies.
  • saagarjha 6y ago
    As far as I understand, you’re supposed to wear that thread in a way that would keep it hidden when wearing normal work attire. If that’s so, how would others know you had one? Would you secretly flash them at each other like a gang symbol?
    • linlucas 6y ago
      The thought of middle aged Indian dudes flashing white threads at each other just made my day, thank you
    • sumedh 6y ago
      I have seen some Indians when they are peeing they will first pull the thread over their ears and then pee, after they wash their hands they will put back the thread under their shirt.
      • throwaway781341 6y ago
        that thread is bit long to carry and comes in between when you sit to take a dump in Indian style (squatting style). Hence it's suggested to put it on left ear to keep it up.
  • throwaway781341 6y ago
    If anyone interested in knowing more about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana
• rutherblood 6y ago
  I've heard this argument alot. To people saying caste isn't that big of an issue in contemporary india, esp in the urban areas: let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs. THIS is the best litmus test, quick, cheap and easy way to clear all doubts on the contemporary caste question. The things is inter-caste marriage is the best way for caste to be eliminated, and since that is hardly happening, doubt it'll go away anytime soon. Hell, Indians on matrimonials openly advertise theirs and ask for partners of specific caste. https://www.scroll.in/article/897802/how-same-caste-marriages-persisted-for-thousands-of-years-in-india-and-are-still-going-strong https://www.scroll.in/article/897802/how-same-caste-marriage...
  • saagarjha 6y ago
    > let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs I have found that one of the quickest ways to be sure that the answer you get for that question matches what you’d like is to open them up to the possibility you might not get married at all. If my parents ever cared about that, they sure don’t now, and they’re nowhere near desperate ;)
    • rutherblood 6y ago
      IMO Indian parents are some of most sly people to walk earth. They coerce, emotionally blackmail and are obsessive about controlling their child's lives be it professional, educational, romantic decisions. Sometimes I think the quote "Most parents would do anything for their child except let them be who they are" is specifically made for the Indian boomer generation.
      • vishnugupta 6y ago
        Oh boy this hit so close to home that I almost fell off laughing in agreement. I’m trying my absolute best not to be what my father was to me to my sons.
        • 6y ago
• intsunny 6y ago
  As a Brahmin (the highest of the caste system) I think the whole caste system is stupid. This is one of those things that my parents tried to enforce on to me, but it didn't work, and if/when I have children they will be taught to consider themselves not Brahmin (because my wife isn't even Indian). Thankfully I grew up with the Western world schooling system where equality is continually preached. When I was old enough to think for myself, I realized I cannot be better than anyone else just because of birth. In the context of BLM, sometimes it is hard to see that our continual strive towards equality is indeed somewhat working. (It just has a very long long way to go.)
• eklavya 6y ago
  I am ashamed that a few bad people give a bad name to us all. It reinforces the cast divide and enables a section to trumpet about the bad Indian culture or bad Hindu. It's despicable and I fail to understand how educated and technical people can still practice something so inhuman. To the people saying nothing has changed in India, no, so so much has changed, there are many more intercaste marriages and anecdotal but like 50% of marriage news I hear are all intercaste. Casteism is on a decline as far as I can tell. The young generation seems to care about these things. Also people saying Indian parents don't allow to marry anyone with a lower caste are being selective. Indian parents don't allow to marry anyone outside their "own" caste whether they are higher or lower, practised by both "lower" and "upper" caste parents.
  • naveens 6y ago
    How many of the 50% of your anecdotal data is brahmins/upper-castes marrying dalits? Have your heard of honour killings where a dalit family killing the upper caste bride or groom?
    • eklavya 6y ago
      Don't really know any brahmins, my friend circle has Dalits and other upper castes. My sister's friends have examples of Brahmin-Dalit marriages, I know Dalit-Dalit, Dalit-Non Dalit marriages. All are economically well off whether Dalit or non Dalit and I get to discuss this online only. We do have discussions about reservation and it's effects however. My Dalit friend chose to fight UPSC in general category as a matter of pride and principal, he didn't want a freebie.
• seemslegit 6y ago
  As a cisgender hetherosexual male of European descent (that's apex privilege tier in case it's not obvious) I can't help notice that the things that keep the Indian caste system alive are Brahmins opining against it at every opportunity while prepending their statements with 'As a Brahmin...' and the fact that promoting Brahmins makes sense for many companies with significant Hindu workforce because other castes naturally defer to their authority and in many cases this is pretty much all you want from a line/middle manager.
• redpillor 6y ago
  This is misinformation. in india when you ain't growing you start playing victim card in order to gain more attention. this isn't a news. this is just an internal fighting. British Caste System isn't active in india https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrTUp2mKbWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrTUp2mKbWs
  • pseudonymousgun 6y ago
    That is simply untrue my friend. I haven't watched what you have shared yet - sure some people might play victim card when they can't grow - but to dismiss the plight of millions of people is unwise.
• ReticentVole 6y ago
  If Indians are so willing to discriminate against eachother on the basis of their own caste, we should be entirely unsurprised when Indians managers and companies discriminate against non-Indians (ie. Americans and other Europeans) in their own countries - of which there are multiple recorded instances. We need to be incredibly careful with the volume of migrants that we are taking in to the West. Issues like FGM, sex-selective abortions, hiring discrimination are becoming established because migrants have come over in such numbers that they have little pressure to assimilate and adopt Western values. I think we need to dramatically scale back immigration numbers across the West, and set in place a quota and auction system to limit intakes to 10% from any one country, with a maximum of 49% males from any one country. We could then allow much freer immigration to and from other highly developed countries*, given that the migration flows would be two-way, and there is much greater cultural compatibility. The HDI top 30, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
  • czzr 6y ago
    Indeed, let’s extend this. Plenty of documented cases of discriminatory behaviour from white Americans from Southern states - we should be incredibly careful about hiring them or letting them into any positions of power.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
      this attitude doesn't solve the racism problem. it just creates more of it. you don't solve anything with an eye-for-an-eye.
      • czzr 6y ago
        I was trying to show the absurdity of talking about a group of people like that, admittedly sarcasm is always dangerous in comments.
• naruvimama 6y ago
  Caste is a complex subject, the word itself is imported from Portuguese and the system itself is a copy of the European system - Royalty, Clergy, Merchant, Landlords, Artisans, peasants/labourers. There is nothing "Indian" about the caste system, certainly nothing to do with "Hinduism" where even rocks, tree, animals are considered divine. The modern caste theory was synthesised by British scholar by putting together two separate ideas that existed in the Indian culture. "Varna" - found in one of many law books called manu-smrithi used by some kingdoms at some point in time. It postulates society and a nation's strength lies in the four pillars of society based on the type of powers and responsibility a person has based on where he/she fell, nowhere does it make the claim that it is by birth. I have never known anyone who has actually read the Manu-smrithi nor have I even seen one, so much for the theoretical indulgence. And it is very practical and fair in that harsh laws apply to people of power like royalty, clergy, teachers or landowner for crimes committed. The "jatti" on the other hand evolves naturally based on the work passed on from father-son and communities based on profession, marriage. In fact, different jetties do have their own temples, with their own priests and gods related to their profession. This is in strong contrast to the Church that monopolised god. Jatti is strong among people who still live in traditional rural settings still following professions passed on from father to son. So ironically jatti is extremely relevant among the poor and weaker sections. So who benefits from promoting casteism today? - Politicians who can divide and rule - Christian evangelists who have done similar things around the world like in Rwanda - The elitist among the different castes who either benefit from reservations, exclusivity, politics or as bargaining chips - Even for people who do not care about caste, will find it exceedingly difficult to find a partner for marriage outside their community network
• naruvimama 6y ago
  Lower-Upper caste is a misnomer, when the British tried to segregate jattis (communities) into Varna many protested. You could be a king, a priest or a landowner within your own jatti or community. The colonialist did the same in Africa, dividing different communities into "tribes". There is no lower tribe or upper tribe. If not for reservation (affirmative action), no one would call themselves a lower caste.
• abhishekash 6y ago
  There is an unparalleled desire of humans to feel superior and thus it does not matter we are in which country or company. It comes out of us and intelligence has nothing to do with that.
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  I’ve got a “hot button” about castes. I hate ‘em. Comes from growing up overseas (I live in the US), and having servants. These were the people that raised us, and were, for all intents and purpose, “family.” Except they weren’t, and when I found out how they lived, it broke my heart. I was also raised by a British mother, who was an awesome woman, but came from a middle-class Liverpool (“scouse”) family, and spent her entire early life feeling “not good enough,” despite attending an Ivy-League university, and excelling at her work (http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm). Knowing how she felt also broke my heart. The British have a heavy-duty caste system that isn’t as codified as India’s, but just as pervasive. Of course, in the US (and, I believe, in other parts of the world), we are currently facing a reckoning about another type of “caste system.” There seems to be an innate human need to “just be better” than others. I think we all have it, and have to make a conscious effort to suppress the impulse.
  • randomguy2379 6y ago
    As someone who was born a lower caste hindu, I don't really mind the british caste system at all. Because the british caste system is fluid. If you are born to servant parents and study hard to become a doctor, you end up at the top of the caste system. Not in Hinduism. Even if you become a doctor, but were born a dalit(lowest caste), you will remain a dalit and so will your future generations. There is no escape from the inhuman hindu caste system.
    • piker 6y ago
      > If you are born to servant parents and study hard to become a doctor, you end up at the top of the caste system. I think this is the opposite of a caste system.
      • randomguy2379 6y ago
        It's the opposite of the hindu caste system, but pretty much in line with the british caste system where caste is based on profession and not by birth.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• naruvimama 6y ago
  People have tried to bring caste politics into Britain and failed miserably. The intent is not social justice, but to splinter the Indian community in the US by legalising divisions and forcing them to declare it in their documents. As a child growing up in south India where we do not have caste names, I became caste conscious only in high school. Friends and class mates, some of them from wealthy, powerful and privileged families would point out how all they need was a B grade to get in a college of their choices. Whereas I may not even if I got all As. It is not that I come from a "high caste", my ancestors were refuges of islamic invasion and were subsistence farmers. It is just that one needs the political clout to be classified as a backward caste to enjoy the many benefits of being classified as one including college admission, scholarships and government jobs. In hindsight I am happy that I made it without reservation, because I do feel less like a free loader. Ironically, my parents did give me a first name popular among brahmins and in hindsight I do see why some Christian teachers might have been especially harsh on me. Stop promoting hate & divisions, especially if you are in a position of power.
• Bang2Bay 6y ago
  Hindu upper caste are unnecessarily oppressed. the victim is not named. Let us consider this fair. Assume that the lawsuit is frivolous, then how is it fair to name the accused. Here accused would be the victim. California has not acted fairly.
• jariel 6y ago
  Having worked with so many people from the Sub Continent - as many of us have - I find it really, really odd out none of this seems to escape the bubble. It's like the rest of us are very unaware of this deeply 'specific' and pervasive issue. In some ways, it's our ignorance, in other ways, it's really quite mysterious.
• richliss 6y ago
  “Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal” Holy shit if there was ever a red flag on an employer and their HR it’s this. Basically- “We have determined that whilst we pay lip service to getting rid of good ole US style bullying and discrimination we are ok with non-US people bullying and discriminating against each other in their own cultural way as long as it doesn’t break the US law.” I can add Cisco to a company I’d never work for.
• pseudonymousgun 6y ago
  This happens all the time, right from when someone joins schooling. In my college, the brahmin domination was easily visible. They would target and harass promising young students from other castes, and make them get into depression. I have simply seen too many people from other castes suffer in my college, these are not any ordinary students, they are really bright and very intelligent ones - their only mistake was being a non-brahmin. And this isn't any ordinary college in India either. I have heard open statements from brahmin students about their "so called superiority" during college - many of them are not really smart or intelligent, but they were of brahmin caste (assumed superiority). One of the YC funded startups has a person who graduated from the same college - he was a prick who would discriminate purely based on caste. I was hoping workplace would be more meritocratic, but it turns out Indian Hindus are screwed up from the inside. You can easily validate this for yourself, goto any organization in India, and you can easily see the upper caste domination - majority of the managers and higher ups would be from brahmin caste or "other upper castes". Brahmins like to project it like, people from other castes are not their equals and since these people from other castes are unable to match them, they are throwing stones at them due to their frustrations. But this is far from the truth, in many organizations if the truly valuable person for the company isn't from this caste or other "so called higher castes", then they don't get promotions, hikes, and end up being harassed and forced to quit if they retaliate - seen too many cases, and am smart to know truth of what happened. And this is all true for ANY non-brahmin people, not just the lower caste ones. The real problem though, there is no real solution to this problem except making these people realize they are being stupid for "assuming superiority" and not understanding science. Many people in the society (obviously from the brahmin caste, especially from south India) have recently come openly stating they are superior and only people born into their caste are brainy. And the Indian government doesn't take any action! Winston Churchill had said this about brahmins : "To abandon India to the rule of the Brahmins would be an act of cruel and wicked negligence. It would shame for ever those who bore its guilt. These Brahmins who mouth and patter the principles of Western Liberalism, and pose as philosophic and democratic politicians, are the same Brahmins who deny the primary rights of existence to nearly sixty millions of their own fellow countrymen whom they call ‘untouchable’, and whom they have by thousands of years of oppression actually taught to accept this sad position. They will not eat with these sixty millions, nor drink with them, nor treat them as human beings. They consider themselves contaminated even by their approach. And then in a moment they turn round and begin chopping logic with John Stuart Mill, or pleading the rights of man with Jean Jacques Rousseau. While any community, social or religious, endorses such practices and asserts itself resolved to keep sixty millions of fellow countrymen perpetually and eternally in a state of sub-human bondage, we cannot recognise their claim to the title-deeds of democracy."
• scarface74 6y ago
  Question coming from a position of ignorance: how does someone know what caste you’re in if you are applying for a job in the US?
  • wobbly_bush 6y ago
    The name gives it away most of the times.
• rpiguy 6y ago
  As an American I never really understood how bad the caste system was until I went to an Indian restaurant and arrived a few minutes before it opened for dinner. The owner, an Indian gentlemen, invited me into the restaurant rather than making me wait until it opened. He was exceedingly polite and even offered me a complimentary cup of tea while I waited for the restaurant to open. Then he barked something in an Indian language (I would presume Hindi but I don't know there are a lot of languages spoken in India) and a small man who looked older than he probably is came out of the kitchen with the tea for us. He would not look us in the eye. He had only a few teeth. I didn't realize until after I left the restaurant that the Indian family who owned the restaurant probably brought their lower caste servants from India with them to labor at the restaurant. The whole thing made me feel terrible and I haven't been back to the restaurant since.
  • person_of_color 6y ago
    Report them.
    • rpiguy 6y ago
      I thought about it, but I am not sure what I would report them for. For example, in the US you can legally bring your unpaid servants to the US on a B-1 visa. Conversely, if he is a paid employee and legally migrated with the family then there is nothing to be done about it.
  • wobbly_bush 6y ago
    > I didn't realize until after I left the restaurant that the Indian family who owned the restaurant probably brought their lower caste servants from India with them to labor at the restaurant. Are you sure what you saw was caste discrimination? It may have been a person taking advantage of an illegal immigrant, something that several people and companies in the US are accused of every year.
• bmmayer1 6y ago
  Didn't the State of California just repeal its workplace anti-discrimination law?
• thinkingemote 6y ago
  I once had a western educated (self confessed Brahmin) guy say that India and Pakistan were culturally identical. Now there's some comments here about converting to Christianity as an attractive alternative, but what about Islam? Could the success of Islam in certain places in the Indian subcontinent have been driven by the caste system? Does conversion to Islam involve a change of name? Does the caste system operate in muslim majority Pakistan for example?
  • vishnugupta 6y ago
    Caste system is pervasive in India. It invades almost every religion in India over time. As an example, here’s what I wrote in another response. This Jati is so pervasive in India that even the non-Hindu religions such as Sikhism and “Lingayat” which were explicitly formed to be away from the Hindu caste system couldn’t escape it. So we now have a few dozen Jati within Sikhism and Lingayats with an overly of Verna.
    • thinkingemote 6y ago
      How about Islam?
      • vishnugupta 6y ago
        India has that covered too. Muslim caste structure is a thing, though not as apparent. I can’t think of a religion that doesn’t have this structure in India. Maybe Parsee?
• hbarka 6y ago
  It’s interesting to see how systemic discrimination takes root. I wonder if there’s an encyclopedia identifying the forms of systemic bias.
• tumetab1 6y ago
  > allowing him to be harassed by two managers because he was from a lower Indian caste than them. Would be cool if article didn't state as fact that some castes are higher than others and/or that people belong to castes.
  • dartharva 6y ago
    how else would you have worded it?
    • tumetab1 6y ago
      Something like this: > allowing him to be harassed by two managers which consider him to have a lower status caste The prejudice should be attributable to the managers, or better, alleged to the accused.
• ascotan 6y ago
  It's because American companies weed out American biases (sex, gender, race) in management. When it comes to foreign-born employees with their own biases HR is silent because there are no rules. I think that a better job needs to done here.
• wonderwonder 6y ago
  "At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states." If this is accurate, that's pretty messed up. If a private company, especially one of Cisco's stature knew of any form of harassment and then decided that this type of harassment is fine because its not technically illegal they should be punished. Harassment at work for any reason is never ok, work should be a space where you are judged on your productivity level and attitude, not on the place of birth of your ancestors.
  • foobar_ 6y ago
    From what a friend has said to me, the situation is fairly similar to the discrimination people of colour face (slavery, jim crow, segregation, economic mobility, interracial marriage, lynchings, human right violations) and what native americans face (land rights, economic mobility, cultural assimilation and destruction) ... except this is in the asian context with added peculiarities. The distinction between the classes is made by the last name and skin colour like how you would discriminate between italian, spanish, irish, german, danish ... on the basis of their name as people look similiar despite all of them being clubbed under "white" and "christian". On paper discrimination shouldn't happen but IRL it does everywhere.
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    It doesn't say it was fine - nor that it wasn't reprimanded or that they weren't told to stop. ...only that it ultimately continued anyway. We shouldn't jump to conclusions. If it went to legal, I would venture to guess that people were at least told to cut that shit out. Legal isn't very tolerant of these things because they know there's liability exposure even if it's not illegal.
• 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
  I am so glad I moved out of CA, it’s not even culturally part of the United States anymore. All Indians and others should leave CA for states that still have American culture. Get off the H1B slave plantation.
• 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
  You need to put them on notice for not speaking English at an American company. They need to learn this is America. Call them out and escalate up your management chain if they don’t stop. It’s extremely unprofessional and egregious to speak in another language that other people cannot understand in a business context.
  • dang 6y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700584.
  • woah 6y ago
    I think they are in India lol. Even if they were in the US, they can speak any language they damn well please. And I think they might be talking about speaking English anyway, since different regions may have different accents in English as well.
    • 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
      I parsed the comment as his manager playing favorites by speaking in a language the team doesn’t understand or isn’t fluent in.
  • gumby 6y ago
    “Put them on notice”? “American company”? What century is this? There are innumerable businesses in the USA where groups of people speak different languages together. I routinely speak Spanish with people in stores, car repair places, farms etc and most of them seem to be US citizens simply more comfortable in Spanish than English. Why shouldn’t US citizens use the language they want? (BTW I come from a country where I’d be shocked if even 1% had ever overheard a sentence in Spanish). Years ago I worked at a research lab in Texas where some of the scientists would discuss things together in Spanish unless someone who didn’t speak it was in the room. Nobody seemed at all perturbed by this. Before that I worked at a government research lab in France where it was not uncommon to have stretches of discussion in English when discussing, say, a research paper in that language. Why not?
• noisy_boy 6y ago
  On a not totally unrelated note, the quota for scheduled caste (SC)/scheduled tribes (ST) in India has had the unintended effect of discriminatory behaviour towards them by non-SC/ST. E.g. if the cut-off marks for getting admission in a college course come out to be 165 for non-SC/ST category and 135 for SC/ST (depending on the no. of seats/no. of candidates/ranking etc), the non-SC/ST applicant who got 150 and didn't make it, isn't going to super happy that an SC/ST applicant who got 140 marks got into the same course. This results in resentment of SC/ST students/applicants/workers who have availed the quota system for courses/jobs etc. Further, the fact that such a quota system was supposed to be for a fixed/limited period for upliftment of such groups, has been renewed again and again for vote-bank politics and that has caused even more acrimony. This has nicely played into the politicians' dream of dividing people into clusters that they can manipulate.
• pseudonymousgun 6y ago
  Maybe this should also reveal why impactful innovations don't occur much in India - where the majority of the population (~97%) is classified as 'untouchables', 'dalits', 'lower caste', 'most backward class', 'backward class', 'other backward class' and treated badly and discriminated - no wonder the large population in India is busy dealing with their socio-economic condition rather than freeing up their mental bandwidth to innovate on socially impactful ideas!
• hkai 6y ago
  Is this the reason why my Indian colleagues never reveal their last name?
  • dramstera 6y ago
    yes
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• randomthrow007 6y ago
  From India, working in software product companies since late nineties. My experience all in India, other than couple of years in USA very early. Have worked in companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon etc in India. To be honest I'm amazed at all the top level comments around caste, surname etc.! In my career never came across such situations. At places like Microsoft, Amazon etc the promotions and perf eval brutally gets fought over during calibrations time. All in open, one manager against another, supported by data - who shipped what, how well, who could have done better, and so on. The last thing one would bring about is 'caste', 'surname' etc., even whiff of it would have pulled down the managers among their peers and their managers (typically group head), before even reaching to HR. I'm not sure what kind of companies all these people worked at. Just so that HN readers does not get a skewed view - in my two decade plus experience I did not see any evidence AT ALL in those FANG+M companies and also do not hear in startups from my friends.
• wqTJ3jmY8br4RWa 6y ago
  I happen to Sundar very well for past 20+ years. I very seriously doubt the allegations here and frankly surprised his name was mentioned publicly. That is against the law I would imagine. I hope Cisco covers his legal defense. This feels like a disgruntled employee trying to get back at his former bosses. While I agree nobody should be discriminated against based upon their national origin, race, caste, gender etc., people need to come to terms with the fact that life is unfair. Some day you are the pigeon, some day you are the statue.
• tasssko 6y ago
  How does the caste system affect Bollywood?
• hexcoda 6y ago
  I am not surprised, I have a friend of mine working for a large financial services company in north america, he was appreciative of the inclusive environment and work culture, but in the same conversation used racist slurs and derogatory language for people from India, it just baffles me how people can compartmentalize hate for one group of peoples and appreciate inclusive/liberal views for themselves.
• _pnhr 6y ago
  I worked at a company called UST global where the CEO was a racist South Indian, that hated North Indians. This stuff is totally common.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• thewileyone 6y ago
  This happens around the world. I previously worked closely with teams in India and someone told me that there's secret lineage books that track every born Indian so that higher castes can identify lower castes. Explained a lot cause many of those promoted, didn't deserve it as much as others, who were probably in lower castes.
• known 6y ago
  Oracle also reported similar incident https://archive.vn/XTZ5f https://archive.vn/XTZ5f Caste matters everywhere: schools, jobs or life at large in India https://archive.vn/tj8tI https://archive.vn/tj8tI And Casteism is worse than Racism; Casteism = Racism + Slavery https://archive.vn/mPsqz https://archive.vn/mPsqz
• known 6y ago
  And this is why in 1932 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award British recommended a separate country to Lower castes where Upper caste/Brahmin/Bania/Kshatriya can live on a Visa;
• known 6y ago
  Education/Employment was 100% 'reserved' to Brahmin for 2000+ years as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Indian_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Indian_history
• known 6y ago
  An advertisement to hire Upper caste/Brahmin/Bania/Kshatriya to clean toilets in India https://archive.vn/sJ7nO https://archive.vn/sJ7nO
• known 6y ago
  Casteism is an Organized Mafia, not Merit which is evident from the fact that 50% Cabinet Ministers in India are Brahmin and 80% Judges in Courts are Brahmin; And Brahmin are just 3% in India;
• la6471 6y ago
  Patels man ....