In another case of caste-based violence among school students in Tamil Nadu, more than 20 caste Hindu students belonging to the Urali Gounder community attacked a Dalit student and his grandmother in Karur district on Saturday, August 26, for laughing inside a bus.
This is the third such attack in the state in 20 days.
Indian people will also bring their caste system with them when living in the United States. Here’s a news article about it happening in Silicon Valley.
It’s wild that even when a country is (mostly) racially homogeneous, humans will find the most minute differences (imagined or otherwise) to discriminate.
I was married into a TamBram family, and after a while you can just clock Iyers vs Iyengars (which is a hyperfine distinction if there ever was one). It’s based on names, differences in pronunciation, items of jewelry… Those are like the differences between a Londoner and somebody from Oxford.
But a Bengali or a Gujurati? They look totally different, like the difference between Connor McGregor and Al Pacino.
India is a BIG place, it has only ever been unified as an empire, never as a nation.
At the same time, I think it’s a bit more fluid than that. You’ll definitely have individuals who can pass for different ethnic groups. I’m South Indian and I can often pass for North Indian (especially because my name is typically North Indian).
“This is the city of Madras,
The home of the curry and the dal
Where Iyers speak only to Iyengars,
And Iyengars speak only to God.” - Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős
Indians discriminate within their own families between those who have fairer skin & darker skin tones. The experiences that Black people have in India are very different from those experienced by White people. You can find out by asking around in travel forums
We are extremely racist, classist, and casteist, but are good at pretending not to be while living in developed countries.deleted by creator
No, I intentionally used the word race instead of ethnicity. I’m well aware that India is diverse and has thousands of ethnic groups. I used race because many of these groups still share many phenotypical characteristics. In places like America there is more of a physical distinction between people of different races.
So, it’s interesting to me that humans can find ways to discriminate even when they look similar (or at least more similar than some other countries). This is probably not even unique to India. I’m sure other racially homogeneous nations experience similar types of discrimination that isn’t obvious to outsiders.
deleted by creator
You’re being needlessly pedantic and you’re trying to convince me of something that I already accept: race is a social construct that doesn’t scientifically exist. I know that. However, when I want to talk about Indian people looking more similar to each other than American people it’s kind of hard to simply say that without using race. Under your system I can only refer to every individual ethnic group of India or those of Indian national origin. Neither is what I want to refer to.
Also, since race is a social construct, you are incorrect that Indians must fall under the broader term Asian. They can be considered as Asian when appropriate to the discussion but they can fall under narrower or broader classifications when it is relevant to the discussion.
While ‘race’ (as a social construct) is a way of classifying people into groups based on physical traits, ‘caste’ is a system of social stratification, where groups are assigned a way of life defined primarily by occupation.
Caste has no distinguishable physical feature and members of the same ‘race’ group may be of several different caste groups. In Britain for example, Dalits have progressed economically and do not follow their traditional occupations of cleaning toilets and skinning dead animals, but they encounter caste-based discrimination in social interactions. Unlike race discrimination, caste discrimination is intra-racial and is practised among those of the same nationality, ethnic origin and/or cultural background.
deleted by creator
Look up what phenotype means. I’ll help you, it’s the observable characteristics of an individual. The way a person looks can be part of the social construct that defines them as a race.
Race actually is based on phenotypes. It’s in the definition of race. Race is also based on ethnic/cultural/religious differences, but physical characteristics absolutely are part of what people call race.
Yes, there is no science backing the idea of race or humans being different based on race, but there is science backing the idea that humans distinguish other groups based on physical characteristics. That is the conversation we are having, not whether people actually are different based on where they grew up or what they look like. Just that humans will use looks to distinguish groups of people, along with other differences.
“If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem” - Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Wish I could read it but it’s paywalled
Removed paywall : https://archive.ph/luzbQ
In India, Dalits have been attacked and killed by the oppressor uppercastes for sporting a moustache, wearing sunglasses, riding a bike, etc.
A week back in Tamil Nadu, India, a Dalit student was attacked by his fellow students for studying well - https://www.newsclick.in/tn-dalit-student-attacked-studying-well-anti-caste-groups-ring-alarm. A group of high school students broke into his home and hacked him with a sickle.
Caste based crimes abound in India and caste-based discrimination is rife even among Indians outside India. A couple of months back in another state Madhya Pradesh, an Adivasi man was urinated on by a Brahmin member of the ruling political party, the BJP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvXxKI-e-40 (link to kbin post : https://kbin.social/m/worldnews/t/138318/Caste-Matters-a-Brahmin-member-from-the-ruling-party-BJP)
India has a law to fight casteist oppression and violence against Dalits & Adivasis called the Prevention of Atrocities against SC/ST Act. But those in charge of implementing this law are themsselves from the oppressor upper castes. So the law is rarely applied even though caste atrocities abound.
Laws preventing caste discrimnation, like this one and the one passed in Seattle, are essential to ensuing basic human dignity to all, Pro-Hindu groups oppose anti-discrimination efforts.
https://time.com/6146141/caste-discrimination-us-opposition-grows/
Please support laws preventing caste discrimination!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=gvXxKI-e-40
https://piped.video/watch?v=gvXxKI-e-40
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
