Indians will not ask outright what caste you are, as it’s seen as overly discriminatory, but they use more subtle methods to identify your place in the caste structure.
“Sometimes they ask, ‘Are you vegetarian?’ If you say yes, they ask are you vegetarian by birth or by choice, before getting into which village you come from, because sometimes the village gives up your caste,” Sam said.
Another method described to VICE News is the pat on the back to see if the person is wearing a Juneau, a sacred white thread typically worn by the upper castes in India.
Higher-caste Indians will also search social media accounts to ascertain a job candidate’s religious views or diet.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azjp5/silicon-valley-has-a-...
Sarcasm aside, this whole caste system is easily a contentender for the worst form discrimination and, yes, racism is existence today.
My team lead asked me in a Teams call, lol. At that point, he doesn't even know what I look like (because of covid, and we don't do video calls).
(I am not OBC though)
> Higher-caste Indians will also search social media accounts to ascertain a job candidate’s religious views or diet.
I don't believe this at all. Feels like overexaggerating.
Life imitates art.
Never underestimate how petty people can be. We've seen plenty of times in the past decade where people doing hiring will examine social media of candidates (on the extreme end even demand handing over of your phone phone during an interview). So it's hardly a stretch to think people with such views could overlap with people who harbor caste prejudice.
You could misdirect someone just passively asking, however as soon as the questions got more pointed, you'd have a hard time keeping up the charade.
Something as simple as the clothes you wear or the food you ate or the mannerisms you had could "give you up".
The answer is yes, you can do these things, and it will confer exactly the benefits you imagine. And the consequences for getting "caught" aren't usually serious, either. But sometimes they are.
> The answer is yes, you can do these things
I mean, I personally can't. (From a UK perspective.) First I would need access to these people and spend a lot of time with them. That could be difficult in itself if they are discriminatory. Then I would need another separate social group to practice my new personality with. Plus I'm just not a good actor. So it's not surprising that people's movement in social class is pretty limited. This isn't even getting into how people of your previous class will treat you if they think you've deserted them.
Lying about credentials or experience is a bit different from wearing a piece of clothing you arguably find pretty or obviously inconsequential things like saying you eat meat or not
1. https://www.seattle.gov/civilrights/civil-rights-enforcement...
Being vegetarian tells you nothing about somoene's caste at all, either by choice or birth. You might make a wild guess but it has very less chance of being correct. Vegetarianism permeates throughout society in both upper and lower classes.
Asking someone's village name to know anything is laughable. There are about a million villages in India, and most villages have mixed caste populations, so this is just so laughably absurd. Even if you meet someone in a local city, you will not get to know their caste by their village name, let alone meeting someone in a big Indian city or the US. Asking someone's village gives you same amount of information as doing Math.random(1e6).
> see if the person is wearing a Juneau
This is something that has almost stopped and at this point almost nobody wears it since it involves a lot of extra effort. It would be very very long ago when the % of peopling wearing it was high enough.
> Higher-caste Indians will also search social media accounts to ascertain a job candidate’s religious views or diet.
This again sounds like a handway statement that is somehow intended to show how one can easily find someone else's caste.
If you belong to certain castes then you get government jobs and promotions on priority bases. Upto 50% of jobs are reserved based on caste. Around 70% of admissions in colleges are done by looking at your caste.
GOVERNMENT insists on knowing your caste.