Casteism Camouflaged as Culture

[prasad1]

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A recent lawsuit against Cisco from the State of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing made headlines for its seemingly rare case of an employee who was part of the Dalit, or “untouchable,” caste being discriminated against by his Brahmin, or dominant caste, workplace superior. The argument against Cisco makes a claim for caste discrimination under the Equal Protection Laws’ terms for racial or religious discrimination, opening the door to interesting comparative analogies.

This lawsuit gives us occasion to unpack the multimodal histories within the South Asian diaspora, revealing South Asia to be more than a land of spirituality or the birthplace of wealthy technocrats. In reality, diasporic cultural communities are often formed via caste organizations or otherwise segregated by caste. While these groups might not feel harmful, especially to dominant caste members, denying accountability for the ways cultural communities continue to perpetuate casteism maintains the hierarchy of caste-based privilege across the world. Such a hierarchy results in dominant caste members having greater access to educational and professional opportunities while members of an oppressed caste are excluded from certain cultural spaces or religious traditions.

“Caste doesn’t really feature in the vocabularies of American society, but caste is just not an Indian thing; it’s a global thing,” said Suraj Yengde, Harvard associate with the Department of African and African American Studies and author of Caste Matters, in an interview with the HPR. Casteism, camouflaged within aspects of South Asian cultures that have traveled across the globe, pervades social, educational, and workplace communities in the U.S.

Casteism Camouflaged as Culture - Harvard Political Review

It is hard to see caste in operation if you are not trained. Beyond the obvious examples of human rights abuses or discrimination, casteism is a normalized set of practices that disguises itself as harmless at the surface level.

harvardpolitics.com

 

[prasad1]

Regional Creation of Casteism

Caste was largely codified by the Manusmriti, a portion of the Sanskrit Dharmashastras, which are treatises on conduct, morality, and ritual from the Vedic schools of Hindu tradition. The Manusmriti depicts a hierarchical system with four varnas: the dominant Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants), Shudras (laborers), and the outcasted Dalits (untouchables). Dalits and Adivasis (natives of South Asia), and Other Backwards Classes (OBCs) compose the larger group of caste-oppressed Bahujans. Over time, socializing forces cemented these hierarchies, and religious traditions emphasizing the superiority of Brahmins, such as Brahmanism, grew around them.

While the Vedic varnas are endemic to civilization in Northern India, the migration of Brahmin majorities to Southern India complicated and augmented pre-existing class divisions and religious traditions that predated the existence of Brahmanism. The chronology of events remains controversial since modern scholars must work with limited historical records about ancient texts, travel patterns, social structures, or legal systems. Beginning in the South and traveling northwards, the vernacular Bhakti movements of later centuries brought a degree of religious reform as Vedic traditions like caste-based divisions were denounced, and more accessible forms of ritual and worship were avowed instead. Still, the social residues of caste persist in religious and cultural contexts to this day.

Caste liberation movements that demanded socioeconomic inclusion and political enfranchisement in the mid-19th century differ widely between India’s regions and cultural groups. South India and Western India’s movements for caste liberation often revolved around deep criticism of Brahmanism and Hinduism. In the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, non-Brahmins have begun participating in government through the Justice Party and the self-respect movement. On the other hand, different sects of dominant caste Brahmins are vying for power in the West Indian state of Maharashtra. North India movements questioning caste in the 19th and the 20th centuries were complicated by Hindu-Muslim religious conflicts during partition and often directly responded to state policies. It’s clear that casteism also contributes to, and is in turn exacerbated by, an array of regional, political, and socioeconomic factors.

In an interview with the HPR, Dr. Balmurli Natrajan, professor of anthropology at William Paterson University, says that caste operates horizontally and vertically. Castes are viewed both as higher and lower than one another and as qualitatively nearer or closer to each other. While it’s more immediately clear how caste adopts a vertical hierarchy, thousands of sub-castes representing immense linguistic and geographic diversity confound assessments about which castes are closer to one another, or how they are socially related. These qualitative evaluations of similarity and superiority work to further dictate power dynamics in the government, workplace, and everyday social life — including most often the permissibility of marriage.

Thus, significant geographic diversity and nuanced power structures clarify that there is no singular caste system with four strictly divided divisions based on occupation alone. Rather, there are many regional systems of casteism. However, these complexities cannot be used to avoid addressing the systemic and structural violence of casteism.

There’s a commitment to fighting casteism on paper — in fact, the liberal Indian Constitution outlaws caste-based discrimination. Also, reservation policies, akin to affirmative action policies, set aside a portion of government jobs and admissions spots in public educational institutions for certain castes. These policies have increased subjugated caste representation in the Indian public sector, but not the private sector. According to Dr. Anupama Rao, associate professor of history at Barnard and Columbia, these policies can euphemize or justify caste as a form of merit or professional specialization under the argument that dominant caste individuals must get their jobs based on work ethic or intelligence rather than on affirmative action.

“Since educational and employment networks function through social networks, we see enduring forms of segregation,” Rao told the HPR. In the realm of education, applicant filtering processes in India are built around caste. Dominant caste members have greater social mobility and tend to attend the most well-regarded higher education institutions in metropolitan centers. Without social capital, it’s more difficult to apply to competitive schools or jobs, know what lucrative fields to study, access tutorials, and succeed within them. Then, “who can come to America depends on who can come out of India,” Natrajan explained. Dominant caste members are able to see themselves represented among those eventually able to use higher education as a stepping stone to America.

Casteism Camouflaged as Culture - Harvard Political Review

It is hard to see caste in operation if you are not trained. Beyond the obvious examples of human rights abuses or discrimination, casteism is a normalized set of practices that disguises itself as harmless at the surface level.

harvardpolitics.com

 

[prasad1]

Creating Change

However, many dominant caste groups are able to dismiss critical discussions about Hinduism as attacks on minority culture. Subramanian recounted the 2005 controversy over the portrayal of Hinduism in sixth-grade textbooks in California, initiated by groups like the Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Foundation. While a few requested edits corrected the portrayal of gods and temples in South Asia, other more concerning ones asked to remove or soften mentions of caste and gender oppression. “These organizations attempted to characterize educational material about structural violence within Hinduism as evidence of their own victimization by a non-Hindu majority,” Subramanian said. Within 48 hours, a group of international Indian scholars cosigned a letter arguing that the revisions were fueled by a Hindu nationalist agenda. Ultimately, only 70 of the original 500 edits were approved. Continued appeals from Hindu groups and a similar controversy in 2016 culminated in the inclusion of casteism in textbooks.

Akin to being colorblind in discussions about racism, being caste-blind, or avoiding discussions about caste is not a solution to combating the complex social oppression and prejudice. As the Cisco lawsuit ushers in a wave of new conversations, more students and employees from subordinated caste backgrounds are empowered to share their experiences. Acknowledging these stories and unpacking the ways caste hides in culture is not cultural genocide. Rather, it is a reflection on privilege and commitment to prompting even the smallest of changes to the communities around us. After all, as Yengde says, “We cannot change the world when we are unable to work through our own homes.”

Casteism Camouflaged as Culture - Harvard Political Review

It is hard to see caste in operation if you are not trained. Beyond the obvious examples of human rights abuses or discrimination, casteism is a normalized set of practices that disguises itself as harmless at the surface level.

harvardpolitics.com

 

[Mani_Chennai]

A recent lawsuit against Cisco from the State of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing made headlines for its seemingly rare case of an employee who was part of the Dalit, or “untouchable,” caste being discriminated against by his Brahmin, or dominant caste, workplace superior. The argument against Cisco makes a claim for caste discrimination under the Equal Protection Laws’ terms for racial or religious discrimination, opening the door to interesting comparative analogies.

This lawsuit gives us occasion to unpack the multimodal histories within the South Asian diaspora, revealing South Asia to be more than a land of spirituality or the birthplace of wealthy technocrats. In reality, diasporic cultural communities are often formed via caste organizations or otherwise segregated by caste. While these groups might not feel harmful, especially to dominant caste members, denying accountability for the ways cultural communities continue to perpetuate casteism maintains the hierarchy of caste-based privilege across the world. Such a hierarchy results in dominant caste members having greater access to educational and professional opportunities while members of an oppressed caste are excluded from certain cultural spaces or religious traditions.

“Caste doesn’t really feature in the vocabularies of American society, but caste is just not an Indian thing; it’s a global thing,” said Suraj Yengde, Harvard associate with the Department of African and African American Studies and author of Caste Matters, in an interview with the HPR. Casteism, camouflaged within aspects of South Asian cultures that have traveled across the globe, pervades social, educational, and workplace communities in the U.S.

Casteism Camouflaged as Culture - Harvard Political Review

It is hard to see caste in operation if you are not trained. Beyond the obvious examples of human rights abuses or discrimination, casteism is a normalized set of practices that disguises itself as harmless at the surface level.

harvardpolitics.com

 

[Mani_Chennai]

But is color discrimination is authorized in American constitution? So long as people have fear about their economic and political freedom(and their benefits), these discrimination will be there any where even in Communist China. When population was small, discrimination were almost nonexistent. So, rich poor;Black-White-Hispanic-Asian discrimination will be there due to (1) fear of losing food habits (2) music (3) language (4) marital customs, (5) family cohesion (6) fear of old age

(7) safety and security (8) health issues (9) grand-parents- grand-children relationship (10) money and so on. So, Cisco lawsuit etc., do not take into account that a person or persons who have struggled to come up in life due to cast system discrimination in India, can not forget their psychological trauma and allow others come back and destroy them. No one wants to go through these experiences like a rape a women can not forget. Also, trusting some one is based on some inexpiable cultural value. One wants a colleague that one will not to fear. Also, the same so called not-Brahmin expect too much landholding and come with poor education from bogus institution in India. IIT grades don't have this problem. So, it will take a long time and mutual trust before things will change. Statistics does not show that even among so called Not-Brahmans sub-castes have not collapsed, number of castes have not reduced; marital killing of inter-caste marriage is only among them. Now, are these discrimination right? No. But creating a level playing field will take a long time.