For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it
appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it. Most people (me included) would be tempted to say - I've never discriminated, I've never seen it happen in front of me, I'm confident none of my friends would do it so therefore it doesn't exist.
But it does. It's heartbreaking that my fellow Indians have to deal with this in 2020. Just like BLM educated some white people about the existence of racism, how it manifests, how it affects people etc., we need a similar movement to educate upper caste Indians.
I've also seen the same people say "if we completely ignore caste, it'll go away". It won't. I personally can't tell you what someone's caste is based on their name because I don't care enough to find out the mapping between name <=> caste. If everyone was like this, there wouldn't be a problem. But I know for a fact that there exist people who can map name to caste and these people also discriminate on the basis of caste. These people might only be a minority but they can have a disproportionate effect. As long as they exist, the rest of us can't adopt an ostrich approach to the caste system.
But it does. It's heartbreaking that my fellow Indians have to deal with this in 2020. Just like BLM educated some white people about the existence of racism, how it manifests, how it affects people etc., we need a similar movement to educate upper caste Indians.
I've also seen the same people say "if we completely ignore caste, it'll go away". It won't. I personally can't tell you what someone's caste is based on their name because I don't care enough to find out the mapping between name <=> caste. If everyone was like this, there wouldn't be a problem. But I know for a fact that there exist people who can map name to caste and these people also discriminate on the basis of caste. These people might only be a minority but they can have a disproportionate effect. As long as they exist, the rest of us can't adopt an ostrich approach to the caste system.