I hope this comes across as me being merely ignorant of the situation on the ground in India but I do have a question.
I've seen caste based discrimination here in America first hand. It's gross and I have absolutely no patience with those participating in it.
If I were to go to India with this attitude, would I be met with compatriots that also have zero interest in putting up with it? Is there a reason that such a backwards obviously oppressive system persists to this day in 2023? Why don't people just change their names to the caste they want to be
Apologies, I'm a privileged American that can't begin to imagine putting up with even a moment of it personally. I know it's not so simple but it's a simple way to ask.
> Why don't people just change their names to the caste they want to be
For an over-simplified explanation, substitute caste with race/nationality and rephrase the question in a setting you might be more familiar with. For example "if people face racism/discrimination due to their nationality, why don't they just do X", where X is to obfuscate their race/nationality. It might work sometime, it might not work most of the times and the real answer is complicated and depends on the details. If you consider everyone in India to be culturally homogeneous, then it's just a matter of saying someone isn't caste X but Y. But if you consider every caste/subcaste to be distinct culturally and linguistically (almost like they are their own countries), it's not trivial to replace surname X with Y as other factors give you away.
> Is there a reason that such a backwards obviously oppressive system persists to this day in 2023?
Similar mental analogy helps understand a tad bit better - why do oppressive practices like racism/discrimination based on nationality exist today? At that, exist in some of the more developed countries. FYI - caste based discrimination is illegal in India, kinda similar to how racism is illegal but that alone isn't sufficient to remove it from the culture.
Well India is place where people compete to be identified as backward caste so they can get reservations/quota in colleges/jobs etc.
This article is written precisely for Western audience who wouldn't know these OBC are among extremely powerful part of political establishment. Reading this article one can imagine these people must be suffering unimaginable atrocities. One who lives in India knows in fact OBCs are largest group inflicting atrocities on actual lower castes which SCs/STs.
Its a problem not easy to solve. Governments all over India have strict laws against Dalit atrocities. But political considerations and uneven enforcement does not help people that are supposed to benefit from these laws.
Another big factor is India being poor country there are not enough material resources as West so lower castes can be given ample support to progress without taking away significant resources from others. This situation just causes more resentment across board.
Name is not the only thing that gives away one's caste/religion. For example, my ear being pierced gives away that I am a Hindu. The specific dialect I speak gives away where I belong from, which statistically brings me to 2-3 castes. The food I eat(e.g. I eat chicken but not pork) or the festivals I celebrate will give away the rest.
Casteism is racism. Meaning your question about changing names isn't as weird as you might think. Consider all the groups that got reclassified as white as time went on in the US, like eastern europeans. It's a made up bullshit system based in nonsense hallucinated by humans and is therefore as malleable as race is. Though screw reshaping it. Let's destroy it.
That's a good question. But as this is a way of maintaining social privilege and the people in power are the privileged ones, I imagine there is little effort in actually changing the system.
They will say it's terrible etc, but no real actions will be taken.
Can someone from India confirm/refute my hypothesis?
Two points - legally, caste based discrimination is illegal. From a cultural aspect - cultural changes are much slower in non-western countries. For example, compare how quickly the culture around marijuana & same sex marriage changed in US, and the laws kept up. But similar change probably takes 10x longer in "older" cultures. As an analogy, the left wing party of India which is supposed to be liberal, opposed legalizing same-sex marriage[1]. This attitude extends to all issues of reform in the entire political class.
I've seen caste based discrimination here in America first hand. It's gross and I have absolutely no patience with those participating in it.
If I were to go to India with this attitude, would I be met with compatriots that also have zero interest in putting up with it? Is there a reason that such a backwards obviously oppressive system persists to this day in 2023? Why don't people just change their names to the caste they want to be
Apologies, I'm a privileged American that can't begin to imagine putting up with even a moment of it personally. I know it's not so simple but it's a simple way to ask.