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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

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?
  - sbmthakur 6y ago
    > Can you tell me one other religion which has the concept of caste in religious scriptures? They may not be having caste-based discrimination but they do have other forms of discrimination. That's why you have terms like heathens, heretics and kafirs. While I agree that Hindus have more of this caste-based discrimination, a simple search shows that it's not exactly uncommon in other religions in India. https://scroll.in/article/876000/is-the-caste-system-deep-rooted-among-christians-in-india-a-kerala-bishop-stirs-up-a-hornets-nest https://scroll.in/article/876000/is-the-caste-system-deep-ro... https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-churn-85-backward-pasmandas-up-against-15-ashrafs/234599/ https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-... https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2019/sep/01/caste-system-exists-among-muslims-though-not-overtly-2027243.html https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2019/sep/01/c...
    - randomguy2379 6y ago
      Funny you mention heathens, heretics and kafirs. All of these are people who are non-believers in their corresponding religions. Dalits are actually believers in Hinduism. No other religion in the world discriminates against the very people who chose to adopt it, except Hinduism. I'll reiterate, it's very rare in other religions and uncommon. Mostly remnants of Hinduism. But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one.
      - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
        > But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one. Aren't there Shia/Sunni divisions and even centuries long wars? Not exactly castes, but probably worse. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2017/08/sunni-vs-shia-roots-islam-s-civil-war https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2017/08/sunni... Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian_Muslims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian...
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into religious flamewar. If you have corrective information, that's great, but provide it neutrally. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    Lots of unchecked rampant generalizing and evidence-free racism from new accounts in this thread towards Hindus and Indians. So now anecdotes spilling vitriol are allowed?
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      No, they’re never allowed. If you see any feel free to flag it appropriately, although please do try to presume good faith where possible.
    - dang 6y ago
      Of course not. But what are the posts you're referring to? As far as I can tell, most of the discussion in this thread is by Indians, Indian expats, and people of Indian background, sharing their experiences. But I haven't read the entire thread.
      - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
        How about this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697939 Replace Hindus/Muslims and Casteism/Terrorism and would you allow this if someone claims they are Muslim.
        dang 6y ago
        I know there are contentious issues in this thread, with people naturally falling on both sides, and I am too ignorant of Indian society to know what all the lines are. But I don't read that comment the same way that you do. To me it's primarily a report of the commenter's experience as a dalit, and a very interesting report actually. I suppose it includes some phrases that, in a different context, would cross the line and deserve moderation replies, but the context matters a lot. I don't think "anecdotes spilling vitriol" is a fair description.
throwaway010720 6y ago
I have been living in the western hemisphere for the past decade or so, and it bothers me that other Indians to this day try to find my caste and try to argue that their caste is superior than mine. One of the reasons I avoid making Indian friends abroad. I have a feeling many of these Indians living in the west for a good amount of time have much narrower minds than most Indians living in India these days.
- ram_rar 6y ago
  I cannot agree more. I feel the folks living in cities in india are much more broad minded than indians who have migrated to US long time.
- 42_ 6y ago
  Tell them that there is nothing superior about misleading people using pseudo science such as astrology.
castevictim 6y ago
The fact that we have to create throwaway accounts to acknowledge the injustice continuing for hundreds of years tells a lot about it. Unfortunately, its no use stating it here, the post have already been moved from first page. Many westerners think British civilized India, they don't known how the British exploited the caste system to their advantage to grab India in collusin with those who are at the top of the caste system.
sbmthakur 6y ago
Could you tell me where (city) and when did this happen? Not denying caste-based discrimination but the society around me is also fairly 'hindu' and I have never seen them promoting casteism.
- devdas 6y ago
  A number of people won't do anything to "promote" casteism in public. They do behave in that fashion though.
  - sbmthakur 6y ago
    Yes. Caste-based arranged marriages could be one example depending on how one sees it.
barry-cotter 6y ago
> Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. Indian jatis have usually been endogamous for over a thousand years. We’re talking genetic differences as large or larger than between Ashkenazim and Poles here. Less than one in-marriage per generation. > Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations > The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and 5 short tandem repeats) variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu elements) in all of the caste and continental populations (∼600 individuals). Analysis of these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians and Europeans. https://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/994.full.pdf https://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/994.full.pdf

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?
- sbmthakur 6y ago
  > Can you tell me one other religion which has the concept of caste in religious scriptures? They may not be having caste-based discrimination but they do have other forms of discrimination. That's why you have terms like heathens, heretics and kafirs. While I agree that Hindus have more of this caste-based discrimination, a simple search shows that it's not exactly uncommon in other religions in India. https://scroll.in/article/876000/is-the-caste-system-deep-rooted-among-christians-in-india-a-kerala-bishop-stirs-up-a-hornets-nest https://scroll.in/article/876000/is-the-caste-system-deep-ro... https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-churn-85-backward-pasmandas-up-against-15-ashrafs/234599/ https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-... https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2019/sep/01/caste-system-exists-among-muslims-though-not-overtly-2027243.html https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2019/sep/01/c...
  - randomguy2379 6y ago
    Funny you mention heathens, heretics and kafirs. All of these are people who are non-believers in their corresponding religions. Dalits are actually believers in Hinduism. No other religion in the world discriminates against the very people who chose to adopt it, except Hinduism. I'll reiterate, it's very rare in other religions and uncommon. Mostly remnants of Hinduism. But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one.
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      > But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one. Aren't there Shia/Sunni divisions and even centuries long wars? Not exactly castes, but probably worse. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2017/08/sunni-vs-shia-roots-islam-s-civil-war https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2017/08/sunni... Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian_Muslims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian...
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into religious flamewar. If you have corrective information, that's great, but provide it neutrally. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  Lots of unchecked rampant generalizing and evidence-free racism from new accounts in this thread towards Hindus and Indians. So now anecdotes spilling vitriol are allowed?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    No, they’re never allowed. If you see any feel free to flag it appropriately, although please do try to presume good faith where possible.
  - dang 6y ago
    Of course not. But what are the posts you're referring to? As far as I can tell, most of the discussion in this thread is by Indians, Indian expats, and people of Indian background, sharing their experiences. But I haven't read the entire thread.
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      How about this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697939 Replace Hindus/Muslims and Casteism/Terrorism and would you allow this if someone claims they are Muslim.
      - dang 6y ago
        I know there are contentious issues in this thread, with people naturally falling on both sides, and I am too ignorant of Indian society to know what all the lines are. But I don't read that comment the same way that you do. To me it's primarily a report of the commenter's experience as a dalit, and a very interesting report actually. I suppose it includes some phrases that, in a different context, would cross the line and deserve moderation replies, but the context matters a lot. I don't think "anecdotes spilling vitriol" is a fair description.

throwaway010720 6y ago

I have been living in the western hemisphere for the past decade or so, and it bothers me that other Indians to this day try to find my caste and try to argue that their caste is superior than mine. One of the reasons I avoid making Indian friends abroad. I have a feeling many of these Indians living in the west for a good amount of time have much narrower minds than most Indians living in India these days.

ram_rar 6y ago
I cannot agree more. I feel the folks living in cities in india are much more broad minded than indians who have migrated to US long time.
42_ 6y ago
Tell them that there is nothing superior about misleading people using pseudo science such as astrology.

castevictim 6y ago

The fact that we have to create throwaway accounts to acknowledge the injustice continuing for hundreds of years tells a lot about it. Unfortunately, its no use stating it here, the post have already been moved from first page. Many westerners think British civilized India, they don't known how the British exploited the caste system to their advantage to grab India in collusin with those who are at the top of the caste system.

sbmthakur 6y ago

Could you tell me where (city) and when did this happen? Not denying caste-based discrimination but the society around me is also fairly 'hindu' and I have never seen them promoting casteism.

devdas 6y ago
A number of people won't do anything to "promote" casteism in public. They do behave in that fashion though.
- sbmthakur 6y ago
  Yes. Caste-based arranged marriages could be one example depending on how one sees it.

barry-cotter 6y ago

> Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. Indian jatis have usually been endogamous for over a thousand years. We’re talking genetic differences as large or larger than between Ashkenazim and Poles here. Less than one in-marriage per generation. > Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations > The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and 5 short tandem repeats) variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu elements) in all of the caste and continental populations (∼600 individuals). Analysis of these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians and Europeans. https://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/994.full.pdf https://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/994.full.pdf