6 ms·

Question from a layman. How does one know that someone is from another caste? If I was someone from India, how would I know what caste my fellow Indian is fro

by Vaslo 4y ago

Question from a layman. How does one know that someone is from another caste? If I was someone from India, how would I know what caste my fellow Indian is from? Is there some kind of code? Or where you are from?

jjaaammmmy 4y ago
this NPR podcast was pretty insightful about this issue https://www.npr.org/transcripts/915299467 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/915299467
- medler 4y ago
  That NPR story was great, thanks. The transcript is definitely worth reading for anyone curious about this. In a nutshell, people can sometimes tell by your last name, and if they can’t, they will ask you questions about your background, such as what town and/or neighborhood your family is from, until they figure it out. In one example in the story, a guy is outed as a Dalit by a coworker who knew him from college.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Outing a co-worker is pretty mean. And asking all kinda of private background questions in order to judge someone's social standing and treat them accordingly is intrusive and bigotted. As usual, racists are more often than not mean bigots. It is somewhat different if you grew up in the caste system, and the discriminatory behaviour was just ingrained. If you start falling back to that based on, e.g., surname it's hard to avoid. Actively seeking information you can use to treat people like shit is a different level all together!
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      > And asking all kinda of private background questions in order to judge someone's social standing and treat them accordingly is intrusive and bigotted. This also happens in the west and it's not caste-related. Go to a suburban barbecue or something, and observe: people will ask what you do for a living, which neighborhood you live in, how long have you been living here, where did you originally come from, and so on. Often they are doing this kind of small talk just so they can figure out where you are on the social totem pole.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Sure, small talk is fine. Only that under the Indian caste system the consequences, and intentions, are much more sinister and severe.
      - mmcnl 4y ago
        I often ask these questions as well, and mostly it's just to find something common, doesn't have anything to do with the social totem pole.
sumedh 4y ago
Your parents tell you your caste. You can also get a caste certificate from you local municipal office which helps you take advantage of some perks if you belong to a "lower" class. Generally you wont be able to figure the caste of someone but there are clues like skin color, fairer skin generally is "upper" caste, sometimes your surname also gives away your caste. Unfortunately some Indians specially from the "upper"caste take this very seriously and think they are superior compared to other Indians.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Caste is a great illustration of how arbitrary racial identities are.
  - Levitz 4y ago
    At which point is this about race? Isn't this more like knighthood in the olden times?
    - morlpo 4y ago
      The point where caste defines purity. Classism is a separate axis from the notion of religious purity that is a fundamental part of caste (which is effectively an amalgamation of the two). As such, the closest "reference point" for a U.S. citizen is the attitudes held by antebellum slaveowners regarding race. You can't comprehend the sort of...emotions that inspire the strict anti-miscegenation of racism or caste-ism, from a lens of "knighthood in the olden times". Nevermind that one can be "knighted" - the idea that one could be "brahminated" is no different from thinking one could be "whited" in the antebellum south. (And no, the "honorary whiteness" given to certain asian ethnicities is not akin to "whiting" - it's merely defining a subdivision of a caste to be slightly higher than the other lower castes)
    - ComradePhil 4y ago
      At no point. Indians have a distorted view of caste because of 400 years of British invasion after 500 years of Islamic invasion. Since economic mobility was greately reduced because of economic stagnation caused by centuries of invasion, they re-applied the originally profession-based caste system using racial discrimination brought to India by the Mughals and the British.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
alex_smart 4y ago
Usually you know someone's caste from their last name. I am someone who was not given a caste-based last name because my parents were influenced by a regional movement against caste. (I didn't even have a last name to begin with but eventually added a non caste-based one to avoid visa issues.) Whenever I traveled by train and chatted up with a co-passenger, almost surely they would ask my name and would never be satisfied with just knowing my first name. They would get visibly confused when I would tell them I didn't have a last name. Edit: Curiously, based on the last name of the person (Soundarajan) whose talk got cancelled, I would actually have guessed that they were upper caste (Brahmin - the highest).
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  I’m curious: would you say the absence of a surname implied anything about caste? I’ve dealt with the children of people with leprosy (mostly SC, with a little ST and OBC) in the vicinity of Hyderabad, and it wasn’t dreadfully uncommon for their parents or grandparents to have no surname on their Aadhaar card, at least, and perhaps even a few of the children. (In Telangana, surnames are almost exclusively used as just an initial preceding the given name, and sometimes that’s even all that ends up on official documentation.)
  - alex_smart 4y ago
    I don't know, in my personal case, this was definitely a regional movement - with plenty of upper caste families also giving their children no surname or a generic non-caste based ones. That is why you will see a lot more "Kumars" and "Anands" and "Ranjans" and "Jyotis" from Bihar than from other parts of the country.
- zajio1am 4y ago
  So why people (specifically immigrants in other countries) just do not change their last name to ones associated with higher caste?
  - deelly 4y ago
    As far as I know (from some coworkers) they do. But last name is only the first step/flag in identifying to which caste person belongs. Sorry, I don't remember exact details, but there some additional steps like special clothes I think?
selfhifive 4y ago
That problem and increasing intercaste marriages is why casteism is dying in many parts of India. The new generation doesn't know how to determine the caste and are generally not interested. Most of the system in large parts of the country will die out with the previous generation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
yedava 4y ago
Aside from last names, diet is a big giveaway. If someone is vegetarian, it is highly likely that they come from the so called "upper" castes. In certain interpretations of Hinduism, which are now becoming the dominant ones in India, meat is considered polluting. If you eat meat, you are dirty, and this "dirtiness" is at the root of why some castes are still considered untouchable.
- throwaway_1928 4y ago
  They do not consider eating meat 'dirty' as much as they consider it 'violent'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa
thwjerjl23432 4y ago
We go around wearing a label saying I'm so and so; born in so-and-so caste; respect my authority.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Here in New Delhi, people will straight up ask you, especially if they're older. Trying to get a house in Delhi as a single, straight male is an exercise in discrimination 101. Landlords will ask you if you drink alcohol, eat meat, have female friends, belong to a non-Hindu religion (especially if you're muslim), your caste, and heck, even what city/state you're from. My friends have been denied housing simply for being from a state with a somewhat poor reputation. Some were denied because they were lawyers AND from a specific caste (the landlords feared that my friends would somehow take over the property through legal shenanigans). And I won't even get into how hard it is for a muslim male to find housing in India, especially outside of big cities. So much of this simply never gets talked about in Indian society. But its just accepted as something that happens. Sometimes feel that we're developing backwards as a society.
- kadayadi 4y ago
  It's true in places you mentioned from even my understanding from multiple people. But it's the same in the whole of India is not correct, as Kerala comparatively has very less problems like this. It's actually surprising for people from Kerala to even know such issues still exist even in metro cities of other states. True that it makes sense to generalize your comment as Kerala is just 2.5 - 2.7% of the Indian population.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sreevisakh 4y ago
It varies from place to place. For example, people are segregated by caste in many places. In other cases, it's easy to identify from surname. But there is one method that you should be aware of - it's more relevant to silicon valley. There are a lot of cases where it's not immediately possible to distinguish caste from name or looks. People from all castes look more or less similar. In such cases, the caste believers would do covert background research. That might be from your social media profile, public and political connections or even professional service records. There are also cases where they make the determination based on subtle differences in traditions (like marriage ceremonies or celebrations, clothing styles etc). And then there are some obnoxious methods like patting someone on their back to see if they wear a 'sacred thread' under their shirt.
ummonk 4y ago
In many regions / castes, the last name is specific to a caste. Also sometimes you can tell by appearance, e.g. I can often recognize Brahmins from my ancestral region just by looking at them. That said, one of the reasons I'm really skeptical claims that casteism is widespread in Silicon valley is that I have a last name that's caste-ambiguous (could be anything from dalit to brahmin) and yet I've never been asked my caste. So it's rather bizarre that casteism could be so widespread without me having ever encountered it.

by Vaslo 4y ago

jjaaammmmy 4y ago

this NPR podcast was pretty insightful about this issue https://www.npr.org/transcripts/915299467 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/915299467

medler 4y ago
That NPR story was great, thanks. The transcript is definitely worth reading for anyone curious about this. In a nutshell, people can sometimes tell by your last name, and if they can’t, they will ask you questions about your background, such as what town and/or neighborhood your family is from, until they figure it out. In one example in the story, a guy is outed as a Dalit by a coworker who knew him from college.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Outing a co-worker is pretty mean. And asking all kinda of private background questions in order to judge someone's social standing and treat them accordingly is intrusive and bigotted. As usual, racists are more often than not mean bigots. It is somewhat different if you grew up in the caste system, and the discriminatory behaviour was just ingrained. If you start falling back to that based on, e.g., surname it's hard to avoid. Actively seeking information you can use to treat people like shit is a different level all together!
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    > And asking all kinda of private background questions in order to judge someone's social standing and treat them accordingly is intrusive and bigotted. This also happens in the west and it's not caste-related. Go to a suburban barbecue or something, and observe: people will ask what you do for a living, which neighborhood you live in, how long have you been living here, where did you originally come from, and so on. Often they are doing this kind of small talk just so they can figure out where you are on the social totem pole.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Sure, small talk is fine. Only that under the Indian caste system the consequences, and intentions, are much more sinister and severe.
    - mmcnl 4y ago
      I often ask these questions as well, and mostly it's just to find something common, doesn't have anything to do with the social totem pole.

sumedh 4y ago

Your parents tell you your caste. You can also get a caste certificate from you local municipal office which helps you take advantage of some perks if you belong to a "lower" class. Generally you wont be able to figure the caste of someone but there are clues like skin color, fairer skin generally is "upper" caste, sometimes your surname also gives away your caste. Unfortunately some Indians specially from the "upper"caste take this very seriously and think they are superior compared to other Indians.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
Caste is a great illustration of how arbitrary racial identities are.
- Levitz 4y ago
  At which point is this about race? Isn't this more like knighthood in the olden times?
  - morlpo 4y ago
    The point where caste defines purity. Classism is a separate axis from the notion of religious purity that is a fundamental part of caste (which is effectively an amalgamation of the two). As such, the closest "reference point" for a U.S. citizen is the attitudes held by antebellum slaveowners regarding race. You can't comprehend the sort of...emotions that inspire the strict anti-miscegenation of racism or caste-ism, from a lens of "knighthood in the olden times". Nevermind that one can be "knighted" - the idea that one could be "brahminated" is no different from thinking one could be "whited" in the antebellum south. (And no, the "honorary whiteness" given to certain asian ethnicities is not akin to "whiting" - it's merely defining a subdivision of a caste to be slightly higher than the other lower castes)
  - ComradePhil 4y ago
    At no point. Indians have a distorted view of caste because of 400 years of British invasion after 500 years of Islamic invasion. Since economic mobility was greately reduced because of economic stagnation caused by centuries of invasion, they re-applied the originally profession-based caste system using racial discrimination brought to India by the Mughals and the British.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alex_smart 4y ago

Usually you know someone's caste from their last name. I am someone who was not given a caste-based last name because my parents were influenced by a regional movement against caste. (I didn't even have a last name to begin with but eventually added a non caste-based one to avoid visa issues.) Whenever I traveled by train and chatted up with a co-passenger, almost surely they would ask my name and would never be satisfied with just knowing my first name. They would get visibly confused when I would tell them I didn't have a last name. Edit: Curiously, based on the last name of the person (Soundarajan) whose talk got cancelled, I would actually have guessed that they were upper caste (Brahmin - the highest).

chrismorgan 4y ago
I’m curious: would you say the absence of a surname implied anything about caste? I’ve dealt with the children of people with leprosy (mostly SC, with a little ST and OBC) in the vicinity of Hyderabad, and it wasn’t dreadfully uncommon for their parents or grandparents to have no surname on their Aadhaar card, at least, and perhaps even a few of the children. (In Telangana, surnames are almost exclusively used as just an initial preceding the given name, and sometimes that’s even all that ends up on official documentation.)
- alex_smart 4y ago
  I don't know, in my personal case, this was definitely a regional movement - with plenty of upper caste families also giving their children no surname or a generic non-caste based ones. That is why you will see a lot more "Kumars" and "Anands" and "Ranjans" and "Jyotis" from Bihar than from other parts of the country.
zajio1am 4y ago
So why people (specifically immigrants in other countries) just do not change their last name to ones associated with higher caste?
- deelly 4y ago
  As far as I know (from some coworkers) they do. But last name is only the first step/flag in identifying to which caste person belongs. Sorry, I don't remember exact details, but there some additional steps like special clothes I think?

selfhifive 4y ago

That problem and increasing intercaste marriages is why casteism is dying in many parts of India. The new generation doesn't know how to determine the caste and are generally not interested. Most of the system in large parts of the country will die out with the previous generation.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

yedava 4y ago

Aside from last names, diet is a big giveaway. If someone is vegetarian, it is highly likely that they come from the so called "upper" castes. In certain interpretations of Hinduism, which are now becoming the dominant ones in India, meat is considered polluting. If you eat meat, you are dirty, and this "dirtiness" is at the root of why some castes are still considered untouchable.

throwaway_1928 4y ago
They do not consider eating meat 'dirty' as much as they consider it 'violent'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

thwjerjl23432 4y ago

We go around wearing a label saying I'm so and so; born in so-and-so caste; respect my authority.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Here in New Delhi, people will straight up ask you, especially if they're older. Trying to get a house in Delhi as a single, straight male is an exercise in discrimination 101. Landlords will ask you if you drink alcohol, eat meat, have female friends, belong to a non-Hindu religion (especially if you're muslim), your caste, and heck, even what city/state you're from. My friends have been denied housing simply for being from a state with a somewhat poor reputation. Some were denied because they were lawyers AND from a specific caste (the landlords feared that my friends would somehow take over the property through legal shenanigans). And I won't even get into how hard it is for a muslim male to find housing in India, especially outside of big cities. So much of this simply never gets talked about in Indian society. But its just accepted as something that happens. Sometimes feel that we're developing backwards as a society.

kadayadi 4y ago
It's true in places you mentioned from even my understanding from multiple people. But it's the same in the whole of India is not correct, as Kerala comparatively has very less problems like this. It's actually surprising for people from Kerala to even know such issues still exist even in metro cities of other states. True that it makes sense to generalize your comment as Kerala is just 2.5 - 2.7% of the Indian population.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sreevisakh 4y ago

It varies from place to place. For example, people are segregated by caste in many places. In other cases, it's easy to identify from surname. But there is one method that you should be aware of - it's more relevant to silicon valley. There are a lot of cases where it's not immediately possible to distinguish caste from name or looks. People from all castes look more or less similar. In such cases, the caste believers would do covert background research. That might be from your social media profile, public and political connections or even professional service records. There are also cases where they make the determination based on subtle differences in traditions (like marriage ceremonies or celebrations, clothing styles etc). And then there are some obnoxious methods like patting someone on their back to see if they wear a 'sacred thread' under their shirt.

ummonk 4y ago

In many regions / castes, the last name is specific to a caste. Also sometimes you can tell by appearance, e.g. I can often recognize Brahmins from my ancestral region just by looking at them. That said, one of the reasons I'm really skeptical claims that casteism is widespread in Silicon valley is that I have a last name that's caste-ambiguous (could be anything from dalit to brahmin) and yet I've never been asked my caste. So it's rather bizarre that casteism could be so widespread without me having ever encountered it.