Cast based discrimination exist in India, but in my experience the issue is overblown in the knowledge industry.
A thing to keep in mind is that the Tech industry is very large. Even within organizations culture can be really different; cue Amazon engineers sharing horror stories while others paint it as the best place they’ve ever worked at.
I never saw this negative behavior out in our day to day, so it surprised me. This might be how the discrimination happens.
It’s also why I’ve had to cut off contact with most if not all of my family who are of Indian origin. They play strange political games that I have no interest in participating. At the end of the day humans are tribal and it is this aspect which makes me hate a lot of people.
Is there a way to tell an Indian's caste? I'm guessing it's impolite to ask.
Let me hazard a guess: You're "not lower-caste" (and that's how you can then dismiss your own assertion).
I am not denying the discrimination in the industry. It is the magnitude that I have my doubts on.
Caste issues are much more complex in my view. Feel free to disagree.
Imagine having two friends, one dirt poor and another fairly rich (but comes from a lower caste). Both appears in an entrance exams for the engineering degree. The poor score 99% but fails to make it but the rich dude who score 70% makes it to the college. He gets caste reservation.
One may say that reservation is is off topic but is it really? It is a lifelong reminder of who you are, to both the friends.
The poor friend who somehow makes it to the Silicon Valley, is often reminded of his caste privileges.
The rich lower caste friend, gets discriminated for his caste and economic privileges that others find undeserving.
There was a reddit thread that went super viral right after the SuperBowl (with zero data) about "demographics of people in the tv ads vs US demographics", and everyone was obsessing over how black people were vastly overrepresented versus their demographics... and STILL white people were also over-represented.
Don't kid yourself that just because you hear (or even experience) anecdotes of people belonging to the dominant group being "discriminated" against that it's the norm.
Simple - go try applying for jobs with a white-sounding versus a black-sounding name and see what happens.
And btw, this is literally what CRT is, and actual experts and academics have shown over and over and over again that the political systems are tilted against the non-dominant groups, even with the boogeyman of affirmative action.
You have a choice: you can assume you're correct that this is "overblown" and do nothing, or you can recognize that it clearly does happen (even if it really is rare) and make sure you're actively watching for it and reporting it when you see it.