Caste at Google.

An excerpt from the article: ‘…the controversy within Google migrated to an 8,000-person email group for South Asian employees…After Gupta posted a link in the email group to a petition to reinstate the talk, respondents argued that caste discrimination does not exist, that caste is not a thing in the United States, and that efforts to raise awareness of these issues in the United States would sow further division. Some called caste equity a form of reverse discrimination against the highest-ranked castes because of India’s affirmative action system for access to education and government jobs. Others said people from marginalized castes lack the education to properly interpret Hindu scriptures around castes.’

Let me repeat that:

1. Caste discrimination does not exist and caste is not a thing in the USA.
2. Raising awareness of caste is casteism.
3. Affirmative action is reverse discrimination against ‘highest-ranked castes’.
4. People from marginalized castes lack the education to properly interpret Hindu scriptures.

It amuses me to no extent as to how the allegedly best brains of one of the largest and (debatably) most pervasive companies in the world can hold all these thoughts together and not go insane with cognitive dissonance?

These are indeed Schrödinger’s people, holding that caste does not exist and that they alone have the ‘education’ to interpret holy scriptures, that they are victims of affirmative action (which is an attempt since the past 70-odd years to overturn the biases of the past 5,000-odd years), and that simply speaking of caste makes them uncomfortable and will somehow revive the system that self-confessedly, they claim to be dead and gone.

And yes, Sundar Pichai seems as casteist as they come, unless he comes out with a strong statement about this, given that he is aware of both, the booking and the cancellation of the consciousness-raising event. If he can be concerned about George Floyd and Black Lives (as must we all be), he can surely show a fraction of that concern for what his privilege allows him to be blinded to. Especially given Google’s prominent position as the go-to tool for answers by Indians of all hues and castes. I would be saddened indeed if Google were to buckle under pressure from a handful of casteist fucks and sweep the entire issue of caste discrimination and all-pervading casteism wherever more than one Indian are present under the carpet.

Come on Google, you can do better. Simply claiming to do no evil isn’t enough. You have to step up to the plate when it comes to calling out evil systems that exist within yourself. And have the courage of learning from it and cleaning it up. Do you have it in you to actually live what you claim to live by? Time will tell.