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Comment by lowend | Hacker News Reader

ITT: (Possibly) "Upper caste" Indians claiming:

1. This is due to a few bad apples

2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not)

3. I don't do it therefore it doesn't exist

I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't give away my caste either. I don't broadcast it or even like to talk about it because growing up I experienced innumerable instances where people's behaviors instantly changed when they found out. Some mild, some extreme but it was there.

I grew up in a metro so this isn't a backward ass village. My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards for things like seating arrangements for an exam. How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?

Even in the US, people casually either slip in sentences or assume castes and speak as such. Fortunately, there are plenty of people (regardless of their caste - I never ask/care) that feel the same way. Funny enough, the people who care about caste also seem to be racially biased in my anecdotal experience. :|

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> 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not)

Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste.

The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. More and more castes, outside the original designation, demanded it in exchange for votes, and more and more upper caste Indians felt cheated as they lost limited opportunities that should have been purely been given on merit basis.

NOTE: I support reservation if it is on the basis of economic criteria, wherein a student genuinely did not get the opportunities as they were growing up. The problem is, India is full of lower-caste affluent families where generations have taken advantage of the reservation, while the poor lower-caste, and upper-caste, people have languished. And due to the reservation, these affluent lower-caste students, in general do now have to work as hard as the students competing in the general category.

Tamil Nadu has 69% reservation, there is similar data for other states.

In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required.

Every, baring maybe 1-2 exceptions, of SC/STs were in slow paced category, which meant they graduated in 5 years as opposed to everyone else graduating in 4 years.

What this meant is that by default the general category students who made through the system, were on average, better educated and trained, than the lower-caste equivalents.

This is just the unfortunate truth.

Maybe true, but if you use that as a reason to harass an underlying, you will get fired if you work for me.

Agree.

Discrimination of any kind: color, race, language, caste, class, gender, sexual orientation, anything else I missed, has no place in today’s society.

I have seen this sentiment being reflected by many people (in one extreme case someone called that they were being persecuted by the government). Indian caste system is an unfair oppressive system put together to maintain the hierarchical advantage. Reparations/interventions were needed to bridge the gap, if not the unfairness would be much more rampant.

Not sure about IITs, I went to one of the top NITs and thats definitely not the case with people not being able graduate in 4 years. I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation.

Disclaimer: I am neither upper caste nor lower, somewhere in the middle, I guess and have not been positively or adversely impacted because of my caste.

>> I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation.

I am one of the examples. I am from Tamil Nadu, which has 69% reservation and I benefited from reservation and other social polices of my state. Re-posting below, a part of my comment from an earlier discussion on the same topic, as it is relevant here.

Caste system is deeply rooted in the culture for thousand of years. It will take a very long time and massive efforts to eradicate it. Self-respect movement was one of the early efforts in the right direction and it had found great success in my opinion. I attribute my life progress to the effects of Self-respect movement. I was born in a poor low-caste family, raised by a single mother. I completed a STEM masters degree in India, migrated to the US and now work at one of the FAANG companies. I benefited from the educational and social policies of my state govt. and was able to push myself up despite financial and social disadvantages.

The major turning point in my life was when I was able to secure a seat at the top technical college of the state through single-window counseling which was introduced by the state govt. the year before. Without that system, I would have applied to individual colleges separately (costs lot of money) and had been at the mercy of racially biased selection committees, dominated by the so called upper castes. I neither had the light skin, nor the deep pockets to pay for a "management seat".

I made use of the best resources at the institution presented by the opportunity I wouldn't have got otherwise. It changed my life forever.

>> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias.

It is not the goal of the reservation system to eliminate caste-based bias. The goal is to eliminate unfair competition by ensuring candidates of equal backgrounds compete with each other. A low caste candidate who was historically denied education can not compete with a higher caste student from an educated family. Hence the candidates are categorized based on their caste background such as BC, SC/ST etc and they compete within those categories. A BC candidate competes with other BC candidates, a SC with other SCs and so on.

Drawing from the analogy posted elsewhere in this thread. This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. Without weight divisions, the competition is favorable to the heavyweights, which was the case before the reservation system.

Saying reservation should be based on economic status rather than caste is akin to saying boxers should be categorized based on height instead of weight. Economic status is less relevant here because it does not directly affect the chances of success. In a math competition, the candidate born in a family of upper class math teachers has an advantage over a candidate born to rich but uneducated parents who were denied education for generations.

The idea of reservation is to provide opportunity to people who were denied opportunity in the name of caste. They were not denied opportunity because they were poor, but because they were from a low caste. When discrimination was based on caste the remedy should also based on caste. Moreover, economic status is transient, where as the caste is rigid. A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.

> This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter.

In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right?

The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem and you have cemented the caste based division even further in the minds of your population.

> It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.

You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years. If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem? That seat which their privileged grandkid will take could be better taken by someone else in need.

>> In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right?

I used that example to emphasize on the importance of having categories in the competition to ensure fairness. I do not wish to extend the analogy in a way it was not intended. Keeping the analogy aside, let me address the essence of your question.

The problem of caste discrimination is deep rooted and it existed for a very long period of time. Expecting a family to come out fully from the effects of the discrimination in a single generation is not reasonable.

>> You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem.

As I said earlier, the goal of the reservation system is not to solve the caste system. The creators of the system very well understood that a deep rooted social problem that existed for thousands of years can not be eradicated by a mere statute. The system was intended to serve as a crutch; not as a treatment for the broken leg. I am against using the crutch forever. I am also against removing the crutch without treating and healing the broken leg first.

>> You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years.

The oppression still exists so as the effects of the oppression that they did not witness for thousands of years. 99% of the Hindus cannot become a priest in Tirupati Tirumala and most other temples. Inter caste marriage is still not widely accepted. Honor killings are still happening. The social and psychological effects of a thousand year old oppression is as powerful as the oppression itself.

>> If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem?

You are equating economic status to social status. I have explained the distinction in my previous comment. Again, the system is not intended to solve the root problem.

> The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term.

As some who opposes the typical right-wing opposition to caste based reservations (aka left wing nut), I agree with your point of view.

For example, I would be fine with constituting a one time generous fund that qualified people can withdraw from (and invest), if care is taken to cover all those who should benefit from such a scheme. Its then up to the families to use the funds as they wish. There is also the notion of giving someone a fish and teaching someone how to fish. A financial fund targets the former and will not be enough, more lenient admissions but something that does not persist forever, seems a reasonable balance.

An eternally persistent reservation is tilted the other way. One can definitely argue about the details of how persistent the terms of the benefits should be, but all I will say lack of consensus on what the decay factor should look like should not come in the way of implementing something that is better than nothing, or terminating something that is better than nothing.

A common argument I see often is caste is not the problem, that poverty is the problem and reservations should target poverty alone and ignore caste. I disagree with this sentiment and consider poverty uplifting an important but orthogonal problem.

Caste reservation is about reparations/compensation for historical damages that has(d) that had been inflicted over centuries.

Kashmiri pandit's losses will not get addressed/compensated by social schemes for the poor. It has to address the issue the forceful, unlawful eviction from their home.

> A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.

I appreciate your comment and you do make some very interesting points. But the above quote seems to contradict the gist of your earlier points.

Once a lower-caste family has become affluent and is educated, they should be competing with people, per your own earlier statement, with those of equal backgrounds. The background of a lower-caste but educated and affluent family is no longer the same as that of a poorer lower-caste person from relatively uneducated family. So, how in any way can an argument be made that the affluent family should be allowed to reap rewards from reservation for ever, while the same is not available to poor lower-caste family. If makes no logical, nor socially justifiable sense.

Also, there is an implied assumption that every upper-caste, richer or poorer has a strong educational background. I believe that economic conditions dictate educational and other background a lot too.

Of course, I will accept that solely going by economical criteria may not be sufficient, but it has to be a major factor.

This argument doesn't make sense in the Indian context, where historically there has been so much scarcity. In any society where there is so much scarcity every one hoards as much resources as they can for the bad days.

This being the case the individual and the peer groups maximize for their gains at all costs. Its a race condition like scenario, where you have to acquire resources before others do, or others will prevent you from acquiring resources.

This is basically the root of all the problems facing in the Indian system. This system plays out at the level of a language, state, religion, even caste. Once a group acquires power they will ensure even systematically, other groups don't.

Its not just about economically uplifting 1 individual person anymore. If a particular groups holds power they will starve the under privileged person off resources at the first chance. This is why you need a reserved set of opportunities in a pool to avoid resource starvation through bias.

The easy way out of this problem is brutal equality. But even the upper castes, forwards states, progressive linguistic groups, majority religions will refuse to comply to this because it now means vacating a superior social position and being dragged to the level of the under privileged position.

Any scene where we discuss absolute freedom of lifestyle choices, equality and liberty is a net negative to the groups that currently hold power.

> Also, there is an implied assumption that every upper-caste, richer or poorer has a strong educational background.

That assumption is valid, owing to the traditional jobs that were assigned to each group. Out of the five classes Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras and Dalits, the last to were physical laborers doing menial jobs.[1] The first three traditionally had access to knowledge and power due to their professions. Brahmin's duty was to read, memorize, recite and teach religious scriptures. Kshatriyas were rulers and administrators and thus powerful. Vaishyas were merchants, business people and large land owners who had access to both knowledge and power. Shudras and Dalits never had the opportunity to get educated and were also systematically denied status and opportunity by repressive religious laws and social norms. Caste being assigned on birth, there was no way for upward mobility.

Before the reservation system, jobs such as bureaucrats, judges, teachers, academics, knowledge workers etc were all occupied by the top three groups, and it is easy to understand why. Whereas Shudras and Dalits were left behind, uneducated and doing low level jobs.

> The background of a lower-caste but educated and affluent family is no longer the same as that of a poorer lower-caste person from relatively uneducated family.

The existing creamy layer rules ensures that the wealthy individuals do not get reservation, even though they are from low caste. This is not a reason to suggest the entire reservation criteria should be based on economic status instead of caste.

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35650616

> In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required.

Even with this low bar SC&ST are unable to get in. It shows how disadvantaged they are as a population.

How the empty seats of SC/ST in the IITS reflect that they are disadvantaged? They have much less cut off, many SC/ST give the exam, their fees is much much less than the general category, they get scholarships. How are they disadvantaged ?

My brother living in his hamlet has no electricity after 8pm, has 0 access to coaching and has little to no access to books or anything related.

This is circa 2000s though.

The village has affluent upper caste people while the lower caste people still do menial jobs

Reservations are meant for them. But the city folk who have the most knowledge and access to money abuse this system while real poor lower class people aren't able to access.

I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes.

Moral of the stort: city folk abuse reservation system caste or economic terms because it takes a 5k bribe to a local govt to fake your income certificate, lot of people I know have done it.

My dad worked in a govt firm, his colleague who earned the same money was lower class so his daughter who got marks exactly as same as mine got a stellar college and ANY branch she wanted, but I wasn't a girl & backward on paper so I had to settle for what I got

>>I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes.

Woodland shoes last years, in most cases the only reason you thrown them away because you are bored, they refuse to wear out no matter what you do with them.

I come from a fairly lower-middle class, poor background(Dad was a truck/bus/cab driver over years). I was donated used woodland shoes by a relative during my engineering days. I wore them for years, like even years after I had a job. And I used to walk kilometers during my college days every day.

If you are poor/lower mid income class student. Woodlands is some thing you should consider buying. Its really buy and forget. Also wear jeans, even if you buy cheap ones. I had a pair, I wore them so much the pockets started tearing out. Do this and you can go expense-less for years. This is my version of ramen profitability.

If you are thinking frugality invest in quality. Lower mid class students must invest in woodlands.

Well, poor people who have to choose between Food and Rent i.e. really economically backwards can't afford woodland shoes and a new fancy phone every other month!

Alao for that matter, Sparkx sandals and shoes too last years, much cheaper option..

There is also the effect of first generation learners. Many don't have the benefit of parents and family with a background in education who can mentor. That's quite a big deal.

I can attest to that personally. I am reasonably intelligent yet I absolutely flunked by IIT exams because of 0 guidance.

None of my family knew what IIT was and for some reason they chose not to send me to a big city for a decent coaching class

Ofc here assumption being made is that college is the deciding factor of success later in life.

Most backward cast candidates will be unable to forge deeper connection with powerful ellite caste people and they'll suffer in networking/connection game.

Education is just one of the many factor, if you don't have connections - you can't get people to believe you or invest in your business, your paper degree isn't going to do much.

Historically, new connections (both social and business) were forged based on marriage which was limited to marrying within specific cast. As a result power accumulated through network effect in hands of a few.

No matter how much education you put in backward cast candidates they are not able to get inside "ellite" network of upper caste people.

I'll give you a counter example, one of my friend dropped out after highschool and another one (backward cast) got degree from IIT university.

Today highschool upper caste person has more wealth and married to a local celebrity while the backward one is at government office and he hates his job, only people he party with are people of his own communities. Many times he's not invited to the private parties by his bosses. On paper tho, you might envy his job but socially tho he's an outcast - it's not changing soon either. He himself acknowledged, he's only boss at work but outside work, no one gives him much respect.

I get what you are trying to say. But this is generally the story of every first generation learner, even if they aren't lower caste. I have seen these kind of situations all around me in the past, my dad only used to own a bicycle, worked hard, passed the exam (general category) and now have a decent house. Everybody who is economically is suffering but this doesn't mean that reservations are the only way/help to succeed

True that the reservation system gets abused a lot in India. Living in North India, I frequently see rich families enjoying reservation benefits even when they don't need it. They don't realise they are eating up positions for the people who really need it. And the children of these rich families that the reserved seat as something they are entitled to and not affording any respect for the opportunity.

It's infuriating that reservations have become so abused, but any step by any party to change it would be met with such a fierce opposition that it's literally impossible to change.

This comment reminds me of "All Lives Matter".

I respectfully resent the above comment. This situation, and my comment, is nothing like equating BLM with ALM.

I understand that you may not have firsthand knowledge of the issues, but at least be open to the fact that there may be more depths to a situation than what is superficially evident.

> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it.

Would love a believable citation (which means not from standard rightwing mouthpieces).

I can believe that it did not eliminate it. That's a tall task that will take time.

This article by Yashica Dutt is very relevant in this conversation:

Does upper caste society acknowledge the private reservations it has had for years?

https://scroll.in/article/951818/does-upper-caste-society-ac...

As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?

I know multiple friends of mine who have suffered innumerable abuse and indignities because of their caste and irrespective of their educational qualifications.

Ambedkar - the chap who wrote the constitution, was ill treated even after his Columbia degree and his PhD. Customers refused to sign him on and colleagues refused to even share the same room with him when he taught as a professor.

It is sad that even in this time and day when we see so much caste oppression the upper castes still continue to refuse to admit it.

By the way, I have never benefited from any reservation of any kind.

"As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?"

Quote from the article you have provided: "With money. Somebody who does not have access to money does not have access to “merit”."

And I agree with Yashica Dutt's analysis. It is true that irrespective of caste, if you have enough financial power, you can change your circumstances, particularly in India. Hence, it makes sense to have an affirmative action that benefits those who are economically underprivileged, than on basis of birth.

I am not from an upper caste either, but my experience doesn't match with yours at all. My peer group is less culturally Indian than others, but I wonder if experiences such as yours are more pronounced in certain regions or groups, more than others.

I have never once been asked my caste, and I have never once seen my friends be asked their castes. But, I realize that being middle class in an Indian metro city already puts me in the 10% class of India that is somewhat shielded from this stuff. I also know that caste becomes a huge thing during marriages and dating. But, I haven't seen much of it in tech. It is far more prevalent in careers where you need communication with under-skilled workers (mechE, civilE), since these workers stick by castes quite closely.

> My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards

Would you be willing to tell me what university this was. I can't imagine this being the case in any metro city in India.

I won't call you a liar, but this is the first I hear of it and the burden of evidence is on you.

> I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste"

Oh yeah, I am too, and I can completely empathize with this people making this assumption. Although, it has been more commonly used in situations where it is used as a way to say "you do not understand the problems of lower caste / dark skinned people in India" than anything else.

________________

Caste based discrimination is a huge problem in India, especially in non-metro India. But, my 2 cents, I have yet to notice any in my time in Tech in the US. ( I did go to a university/location with low south Asian%, but my peer groups in university were very Indian, as are most masters programs, but YMMV)

I know in my brother's university (IT-BHU), they put caste names next to students' names. And this was a top-tier government university at that!

In my University (IIT-D), I believe certain scholarship announcements revealed details about students' categories, ie whether they were SC/ST/OBC/General. Especially if it were a means scholarship.

Worse case, professors in India have zero personality training, and will casually ask such questions of their students.

Aren't those merit-cum-means scholarships actually have a caste-based criterion? In that case they are just being transparent, and claiming it to be casteist is ridiculous.

You might as well say that reservations revealed caste by showing people got through reservation quota, hence there is caste discrimination, hence more reservation is required.

They could do the same without putting student lists on public display. Guess it's up to the authorities that be to weigh the decision whether it's better to be more transparent or whether to preserve a sense of anonymity in certain key topics.

There was this online portal built at the time, where students could check the rank of any person, just with a name or IIT-JEE exam pass number. Of course a lot of people searched, and within one month (the feature was released in December), a lot of friendship circles changed, thus rendering moot the whole point of bringing every student to live under the same roof.

In BHU (and by extension at IT-BHU as well and have heard it has continued at IIT BHU as well) and many other universities in the North it's called phylumbaazi.

Phylum + Baazi.

In TN they even demanded wrist bands for students to identify their caste...in 2019 at the school level. This was abolished after a lot of opposition.

https://www.edexlive.com/news/2019/aug/18/caste-in-stone-why...

> My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards for things like seating arrangements for an exam. How the fuck is a person's caste relevant?

I have seen far less serious things related to caste dragged on media for days. I think this is illegal, and I am sure I heard in the news there is a law against marking someone's caste. Also there is law where you can be selective about disclosing caste and won't have to disclose it if you don't want the benefit. Any proof you have for this?

https://admission.aglasem.com/jee-main-cut-offs/

Category JEE Main 2019 Cut Off Common Rank List 89.7548849 Gen EWS 78.2174869 OBC NCL 74.3166557 SC 54.0128155 ST 44.3345172 PWD 0.11371730

Common Rank List = Upper caste SC/ST = lower caste

90 vs 44/54.

The "Indian left" doesn't acknowledge this, and jumps in every discussion to defend the current caste based reservation system that doesn't consider economic status of the candidate.

If someone writes JEE, it is likely they have spent a lot for coaching / study materials, and it is likely they don't deserve reservation.

This argument relies on the fact that the concerned person should not rise above ME in status. Perhaps you should look at it as a country and see that the upliftment happens at multiple levels across multiple generations. A person who gets a job as a clerk in the first generation gets his kids the education to make him an engineer. This kid then wants his kid to grow up to be a civil servant.

As it has been mentioned in the thread multiple times, reservation is not an economic upliftment program. It's a social upliftment program to ensure representation at all levels.

So I do a quick lookup on what "OBC NCL" means and it comes back as "Other Backwards Class - Non Creamy Layer".

My initial reaction was that this was some sort of joke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creamy_layer

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/OBC-creamy-layer

As a 24yo Indian guy living in the US, I find this comment very confusing.

How do I even find out what "caste" I'm in?

I've literally never heard that word used in a conversation with other Indian people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Are you Indian american? Because generally people know what surnames fall in whatever caste. People, mostly of our parents generation, know and remember thousands of surnames and associated caste.

As a Bengali I can assure me there are many like me from Bengal who don't. Bengal for whatever reasons seemed to have solved this way better than other states.

I don't either. You'll have to get a better sample representing bengali villages and older people to conclude that casteism is dead.

As I had mentioned in my other comment, our grandparent generation holds on to some aspect and that it is stronger in villages. But having travelled through India extensively, the kind that goes on in Bengal is no comparison to say Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka. That's the reason you will politicians have caste centric campaigns and manifestos. In Bengal, politicians know that caste will not get them votes, BJP is trying its level best to split the vote along caste lines.

Perhaps it's a sign of being sheltered. Kind of like white people in the USA not knowing of their privilege.

Except my caste clearly has distinct disadvantages whereas "white privilege" is justified with unequal outcomes. There's causation with caste, but poor justification beyond correlation with "white privilege" other than the so often repeated but flawed study about call-back rates being higher for white candidates.

In other words: caste-based discrimination is real, and white privilege just seems like a ghost

Are you saying that because white privilege is less acknowledged, it's harder to grasp for those within and without it? Or that it's existence is dubious?

No, that might not be the case.

Caste based discrimination varies by state. It is far less of a deal in Bengal, for example. This is one reason you will see that caste based identity politics is not used in Bengal, whereas that is the thing TM in other states. If the data were available I would be very curious how it varies state by state.

You need to know your great-great-grandfather's name in India. There's a book of names, like a yellow pages, that tracks people and caste.

This is what I've been told when I was in India.

You will likely find out when you are about to get married. I also never knew my caste till my profile was created on matrimony sites and lo and behold, my parents finally told me what caste I was.

I am happily married with my partner who is from another caste and we don't plan on carrying forward this caste nonsense with our children.

> Even in the US, people casually either slip in sentences or assume castes and speak as such.

What kinds of things do they say, or how does their speaking change once they learn? I'm totally outside of this culture but have been studying caste discrimination and its history lately and have been trying to learn all I can about it.

They'll sneak in the odd question here and there. Maybe they'll find out from the surname, or perhaps the locality of the town/city you're from in India, or the kind of food you eat (upper-castes are mainly vegetarian), or your dialect. Heck sometimes the deity you worship will reveal one's caste.

But then what? They talk down to you if you are a lower caste? In what ways does their behavior change if they know your caste? If they talked down to you and you told them that you don't appreciate their tone, then what would happen?

Yes, they talk them down, berate them more often, mostly involuntary cues of rejection. Most people would not talk back for the sake of being passed over for promotion/raises. I understand most Westerners wouldn't balk from the idea of talking back at them, but cultural norms in Asia effectively discourage back-talk against superiors, hence why it has been prevalent in SV for this long.

Why is reservation not a problem? If a SC/ST person whose parents are rich (maybe due to a govt. job by reservation itself?) and gets 1/2 of marks of a middle class person just by being lower caste, then there is an issue with reservation.

The correct approach is, if the parents of a lower caste person have got advantage of reservation, the reservation should go to next person in queue. This way benefits can be evenly distributed instead of benefitting few wealthy people.

We should also realize that a child's performance also depends on how his/her parents are treated. A child who sees parents being looked down upon will not be as confident as a child who sees parents being respected. So reservation will be required for generations in India even for "rich" people who are not respected.

I once asked a co-worker if he felt caste ever impacted him in any way. He said well when I went to the local visa office in India the officer behind the desk approving visas had a certain surname. Only 25 people a day are approved for a Visa and except for me, everyone else in the room had that officer's surname.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Does an Indian national approve visas for Non-Indian countries in the consulates of other countries? Which country's visa is that?

Does Canada allow an Indian national to approve visa applications?

> Only 25 people a day are approved for a Visa and except for me, everyone else in the room had that officer's surname.

How did you know the surnames of all the other people in the room?

I didn't. He did. I'll ask him to retell the story since as someone else pointed out he was confused by the details. So I'll try to get them from the story teller.

I misunderstood. The lack of quotation marks made it seem like it was your story.

Even as a beneficiary of the reservation system, I do wonder whether it is the answer. I personally feel the caste identity is tied deeply with religion and both tend to get utilized by the powers that be, in a similar manner. Ultimately, it falls onto us to uplift ourselves, as frankly, I don't see why anyone, would willingly give up something that benefits them, especially when it is considered a part of their birthright.

How do they know what each persons caste is?

Surname or family name is a common indicator but may not be 100% accurate

It is very regional. I am from Eastern India and I have now what is considered low caste in say Punjab or Gujarat

>people casually either slip in sentences or assume castes and speak as such.

Excuse my ignorance but how does one "speak as such" because of caste?

Are there different words, eg like "tu" and "vous" in French?

//How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?

I agree. It shouldn't be. But then it shouldn't be relevant during admissions too yeh?

How is growing up with extreme discrimination not relevant?

Depends. So who should win the 100 m olympics? someone who is fastest or someone who was discriminated against? Which team should win the football match? the team that scores the most points or should the background of the players be a criteria?

Education isn’t a zero sum game.

University admission is for those on the margin, since the positions are limited

Admissions counselors aren't arbitrating a match, they're predicting success and shaping an environment.

Who's going to be more successful: someone tutored, mentored, and cajoled to a 1500 SAT or someone who never had sh*t and got a 1450 cold?

//Who's going to be more successful: someone tutored, mentored, and cajoled to a 1500 SAT or someone who never had sht and got a 1450 cold?

Yeah, so who should be given gold in olympics? someone who was trained and mentored and finished first or someone who never had sht and ran slower?

College admissions isn't the finish line of "who is best". It's a starting point for developing potential, and thereafter college still isn't a competition to see who is best.

Your analogy doesn't follow GP's logic. It's more like: do you want to watch olympics where rich kids with sports coaches do mediocre to well, or do you want to watch an Olympics where a state-sponsored scholarship program gives you the best of the best amongst poor/middle-class/rich people because talent is not distributed only amongst the rich.

Insufficient information to determine an answer.

That's a false analogy. Genetics can beat training but discrimination cannot be overcome without intervention. I'm a strong believer in equality of opportunities, but I feel that's constantly misunderstood.

If your family can pay you a tutor, you're given more opportunities. If you don't have to work after school, you're given more opportunities. If your family is educated and can give you guidance, you're given more opportunities. If your parents can pay for electricity, yes, you're given more opportunities.

We can keep going, but the privileged trend to think everything they got is due to their effort. Somebody that has a lower score than you might deserve access to a better university that you.

I was "privileged" growing up. We always had food in our plates; we couldn't dine out but my parents loved me and I could study at night. I had to work while studying but it was not the worst that I have seen. I was the first of my family going to a university but at least my parents understood that education was important and reinforced that in me.

>discrimination cannot be overcome without intervention

There have been many people in history who have overcome discrimination without intervention, so this can't be true. Just because it's harder doesn't mean it's impossible.

Did you mean to say something more specific?

I think its quite clear what he/she meant. You are trying to draw him into a debate that I cannot accept to be clean in good faith.

That there are a few can pull it off is not relevant when the scale we are talking about is India's population.

Why not the state bankrupt you of all possessions. Its not impossible to rise up from such a situation. It has been done before.

There is actually a related system in place at the Olympics which few people talk about. Only 3 people of each country are allowed to compete in a given event. This has led to many athletes in the top 10 worldwide to not be able to participate because they are from a dominating country. For example Kenyans in 3000 steeple.

Good point.

Lol, also things like Eric "The Eel" Moussambani at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Admissions aren't about winning the race, they're about institutions deciding who has the most potential to win. In that way they are comparable to sporting drafts where people are absolutely chosen over better players because the team believes they have greater potential.

That's a false equivalence

The merit(score) of a student is dependent on factors other than the student's aptitude such as the financial status of the family, guidance received at young age etc.

The students from lower-caste communities usually are also from low-income families and lack proper guidance (partly because the parents are not educated) compared to students from upper-class communities.

The reservation in academia is relevant to uplift people who are from disadvantaged communities. The society as a whole whould benefit from it.

IMO, there are valid criticism of implementation details of reservation for lower-caste in India, such as:

* should a person who belongs to lower-caste get eligibility for reserved quota if that person's parents also benefited from reserved quota?

* should caste based reservation be allowed in instances that require highly specialized skills? As opposed to equal treatment based on only merit. (Example: admissions to MD, Govt. jobs that requires highly specialized skills)

You can criticise implementation details of the reservation-system used as a tool by the Government to correct historical imbalance in society but not the idea as a whole because the system in place is showing positive results. We have made a lot progress in last few decades but still a long way to go in good direction. This is my opinion as an Indian techie from an upper-caste family.

Edit: typos / grammar

This is pretty wrong. Caste reservation are not about economic inequality, but social representation. They are kinda like reparations. If they were just about economic inequality, you would just have free jee coaching, not caste based reservation.

My point was that 'social representation' and 'economic inequality' are related.

They don't have enough social representation in social institutions because of economic inequality caused by Caste system over long period of time.

>> How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?

> I agree. It shouldn't be. But then it shouldn't be relevant during admissions too yeh?

I interpreted the situation the GP described as a policy meant to enable bigoted discrimination. The bad part is the bigotry, not the discrimination.

Discrimination meant to relieve the effects of past bigotry on disadvantaged people is not a bad kind of discrimination. Meritocracy isn't a fair competition if some families already got a head start before it was decided the rules should be made fair and were allowed to keep it.

Don't generalize. Give strong arguments vs. only relaying your own experience. Otherwise, you are falling into a trap you yourself laid out in point #3 yourself.

Question is whether most Indians who come to US for work are actually upper class Indians already and thus this 90% number is what it is. Or do lower class Indians also come to US, face discrimination and thus either go back or struggle to find work. If the former, the issue is policies/attitudes in India which needs to be done better (easier said than done). If the latter, then we need to dig deeper.

If you had seen the recent CISCO case, then you'd know it is definitely the latter.

Using 1 example and generalizing is literally what I am arguing against in my comment above.

You forget that this entire trove of research on Indian-American hiring policies is coming out of the woodworks because of that one case.

I don’t have any expertise here, but “no it’s not” is not an argument, regardless of how loud you say it.

The same could be said about your comment.

Of course. I am not refuting the point, only highlighting that none was actually made. The deficiency of the argument by trying a more obvious statement of fact. “Two plus two isn’t five, it’s just not.” Agree with you, cap’n. “Two plus two isn’t four... it’s just not.” Um, okay.

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