12: Caste hegemony in the tech world
As someone who has worked at Microsoft and in the larger tech sector for 15 years, Raghav speaks of how caste plays out in tech through education, meritocracy, purity of food at workplaces and so on. Higher education access in India has always been limited to dominant caste circles, who then believe their entries to IIT and other top schools are based on being the 'best', as opposed to the privilege of generational wealth and other resources. This ignorance prevents them from speaking up against oppression, and also to band together against affirmative action. According to Raghav, it is also the discomfort of having policies that directly out you for your part in the violence that prevent even well-meaning savarnas from taking a stand. "So many of the people who are in power in tech in the United States came of age and were in school during these very polarising times around reservation. It is actually very critical for people to know this," says Thenmozhi. She also highlights how the internal referral system at workplaces in the US make it easier to create a caste homogenous space, thereby making the environment prone to hostility for Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi and other marginalized communities. "I guess the third symbol of casteism which is relevant in the tech sector directly is food. There is this big hoopla around vegetarian food and its purity which is a very common cultural thing in institutions of higher education in India," adds Raghav on how all the educational biases reflect parallelly in the US tech sector, with people unafraid to display caste bigotry and normalize broadly Brahminical narratives as Indian culture. Another unique aspect of work culture in the US also happens to be the need to be 'politically correct' in the workplace, says Raghav. This makes people less likely to report cases of discrimination. Add to that the lack of legal remedy and the absence of caste as a protective category in organisational policies across major companies like Microsoft, Amazon, CISCO, etc - and you have an extremely volatile setting. The CISCO case of discrimination being pursued under the Civil Rights Act presents immense potential for caste to finally be recognized as a separate category. As Thenmozhi points out, it stands to create a precedent nationally which will not only open up conversations but also lead to well-structured policy change. Listen to Episode 12 of Firstpost's Caste in the USA to find out more.