India’s engineers have thrived in the tech industry. So has its caste system

Caste superiority is rooted in primitive tribal sh , you can't understand it logically, its as if since the time you were born you are subtly or explicitly told certain people are inferior. Even a generation or two ago, if a dalit drank from a glass, they would throw the glass out rather than wash it. Even progressive Indians who say everyone is the same regardless of caste would flip out if their child wanted to marry a dalit. You condition children like that from birth you will obviously get more than a few people with messed up opinions on dalits. Brahmins being at the top of the caste system have even stronger traditions regarding caste and what not (thus a stronger chance of indoctrinating their children with a more messed up version of the caste discrimination that other high castes also practice)

There are things in that article that seemed plausible but the “patting on the back to see if he is wearing a sacred thread” one seemed like paranoia to me. First of all, only in South India is an automatic marker of Brahmanahood. My family is of Gujarati origin (and Brahmana FWIW) and there are lots of people in our locality of different castes who wear the “Janoi” as we call it. Conversely, there are many socially and politically powerful castes who don’t wear it. Even in the South, the dominant castes are often ritually “low”. Western discussion of caste often fails to note that social hierarchy not necessarily = economic hierarchy. Secondly, I’m sorry to say, there is not exactly unity amongst Brahmanas. The kind who would want to discriminate against Harijans would be only too happy to discriminate against the “wrong” type of Brahmana. So the patting the back test wouldn’t help them much.

“The untouchable-ness of their ancestral caste ... is a part of their self-identity.”

Sorry to ramble again but some context is needed. It was the Portuguese and later European colonists who came up with the term untouchable when they noticed the extent to which Indian (including Indian Muslim and Christian) society avoided such people. But in general Indian society is not touchy-freely like some others. In Gujarati they were called is acchut from the Sanskrit word ashuddha meaning “impure”. Whereas all people can be impure in certain situations, the idea is that some people who engage in ritually problematic occupations (such as e.g. cow slaughter) become inherently impure. As occupations are usually passed down in families this led to entire populations exhibiting hereditary impurity.

In the 20th century social reformers tried to get society to adopt less derogatory terms and there were two competing approaches. Mahatma Gandhi argued for the term Harijan “people of Hari” Hari is another name for the Hindu God Vishnu. It comes from a popular hymn by the 16th century saint Narsinha Mehta who though a Brahmana himself shocked his peers by eating together with untouchables (a big no-no) on the grounds that all friends of Vishnu were friends of his.

The second approach was by B.R. Ambedakar another of Indias founding fathers and himself an untouchable Mahar from Maharashtra. He felt Gandhi was too paternalistic and whitewashed the history of caste relations. He advocated the term Dalit which means “oppressed.” Although Dalit is now the politically correct term, where my family is from at least, Harijan is widely used. (Compare to the way woke white people get all bent out of shape by “Red Indian” but actual “Native Americans” don’t really mind.)

With all that, let me respond to your words. The trouble with Dalit is that naming the problem is a powerful way to mobilize to solve it but if your identity is “oppressed” you can never stop being oppressed or else you are a sell out and a traitor. You need something more positive. For instance what does my caste mean to me? Why do I bother calling my self a Kathiawadi Vallam Brahmana in America in 2020? It’s not for the prestige, as you point out, Americans can’t tell and don’t care. But this is my extended family, my heritage. I know my family tree for 12 generations and it could have been more if there hadn’t been a fire a century ago. I follow customs which have been around for three thousand years or more. I want my children to marry spouses of the same background and continue that culture for another three thousand years. And Dalits want such things too but they can’t take pride in their past because it is oppression. So either they can make people like me to feel guilty fot taking pride in my past (fat chance), or continue to be “oppressed” inventing oppression if necessary. Perhaps a third option is to invent a more glorious past. Dr. Ambedkar for instance weaved a fantastic and utterly ahistorical tale of how todays untouchables are the descendants of Buddhists who were surpressed by the Hindus for being heretics. He himself converted to Buddhism and encouraged his followers to do the same. His brand of Buddhism is still around but has about as much to do with actual historical Indian Buddhism, which after centuries of decline was finished off by Muslim invaders in the 13th century, as the Nation of Islam has with actual Islam. Interestingly Dr. Ambedakar went to Columbia University and probably met the Garveyites and other precursors of Black nationalism in nearby Harlem and that might be where he got some of his ideas from.

From this outsiders perspective Harijan or the actual names and cultures of the various untouchable castes seem like a more positive foundation for a healthy self-identity but its not “radical” or “revolutionary” so activists in Seattle will not go for it.