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Comment by unmole | Hacker News Reader

> I am from “upper caste”. My experience might not be commonly heard perspective. In 10th grade of schooling, my parents changed my lastname to avoid that folks figure out the caste. Due to affirmative action (aka reservation) on steroids, upper caste were losing opportunities. My parents wanted to avoid that I lose out on selection, promotions.., where subjective discretion was involved.

I'm sorry but this makes no sense to me whatsoever. Reservations in India follow a formal documented process and do not apply to private enterprises. Changing one's surname will make zero difference.

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You are right. This anti "affirmative action" rhetoric is quite common among upper caste people in India. Unless OP managed to get faked documents and pretended to be from a lower caste, they absolutely did not gain anything.

In the same way you don't gain anything in the US if you change your last name from a 'black' or 'jewish' or 'slavic' last name to something 'american'. That is people treat you differently, even though legally nothing has changed.

Perhaps if something doesn’t make sense, ask for clarity instead of asserting that changing one’s surname makes zero difference.

I am also familiar with many upper-caste people who have changed their surname to something generic (like Kumar) to avoid revealing their caste. This doesn’t just apply to job seeking in private enterprises. They do this to avoid any kind of attention drawn to their surname, and hence caste. This attention can then play out differently in different scenarios.

I called the stated reason i.e. fearing losing out on jobs and promotions nonsensical.

They change their surname so that they can weasle into quotas reserved for the repressed class. You are not fooling anybody Mr. Kumar.

Changing surname doesn't change caste certificate. Otherwise millions of people would be turning into lower castes

> Changing surname

Is just the first step. Bribing the right authorities is next.

> Otherwise millions of people would be turning into lower castes

How do you know they aren't already?

I have a kumar surname. Can you get me a Scheduled Caste/Tribe certificate? I am ready to pay a million rupees if you get it done.

yes.

Surname change was to avoid revealing caste. No appropriation of "lower caste" to get favorable quota.

I have no evidentiary way to conclude if change ended up helping me or not. I just never had to face caste based discrimination.

I shared the experience, so folks on this forums come out knowing more than what is typically seen in media.

No rhetoric. There is no denying, that problem is real.

> There is no denying, that problem is real.

The problem of people from dominant castes facing discrimination on the basis of their surnames is wholly imaginary.

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