Top One Percent: Are Hindus the New Jews in America?
Hindu Americans have surpassed Jewish Americans in education and rival them in household incomes. How did immigrants from India, one of the world's poorest countries, join the ranks of the richest people in the United States? How did such a small minority of just 1% become so disproportionately represented in the highest income occupations ranging from top corporate executives and technology entrepreneurs to doctors, lawyers and investment bankers? Indian-American Professor Devesh Kapur, co-author of The Other One Percent: Indians in America, explains it in terms of educational achievement. He says that an Indian-American is at least 9 times more educated than an individual in India. He attributes it to what he calls a process of "triple selection".
Hindu American Household Income:
A 2016 Pew study reported that more than a third of Hindus (36%) and four-in-ten Jews (44%) live in households with incomes of at least $100,000. More recently, the US Census data shows that the median household income of Indian-Americans, vast majority of whom are Hindus, has reached $127,000, the highest among all ethnic groups in America.
Median income of Pakistani-American households is $87.51K, below $97.3K for Asian-Americans but significantly higher than $65.71K for overall population. Median income for Indian-American households $126.7K, the highest in the nation.
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Hindu Americans Education:
Indian-Americans, vast majority of whom are Hindu, have the highest educational achievement among the religions in America. More than three-quarters (76%) of them have at least a bachelors's degree. This high achieving population of Indian-American includes very few of India’s most marginalized groups such as Adivasis, Dalits, and Muslims.
By comparison, sixty percent of Pakistani-Americans have at least a bachelor's degree, the second highest percentage among Asian-Americans. The average for Asian-Americans with at least a bachelor's degree is 56%.
American Hindus are the most highly educated with 96% of them having college degrees, according to Pew Research. 75% of Jews and 54% of American Muslims have college degrees versus the US national average of 39% for all Americans. American Christians trail all other groups with just 36% of them having college degrees. 96% of Hindus and 80% of Muslims in the U.S. are either immigrants or the children of immigrants.
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| US Educational Attainment By Religion Source: Pew Research |
Jews are the second-best educated in America with 59% of them having college degrees. Then come Buddhists (47%), Muslims (39%) and Christians (25%).
Triple Selection:
Devesh Kapur, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and co-author of The Other One Percent: Indians in America (Oxford University Press, 2017), explains the phenomenon of high-achieving Indian-Americans as follows: “What we learned in researching this book is that Indians in America did not resemble any other population anywhere; not the Indian population in India, nor the native population in the United States, nor any other immigrant group from any other nation.”
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Comments
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/18/why-are-so-many-of-the-worlds-best-companies-run-by-indians-google-sundar-pichai/
...part of the reason why you’ll see far fewer Chinese than Indians, not only as chief executives but also in the upper management tiers of large Western multinationals, is far from a positive for India. Rather, it speaks to the relative strength of the Chinese economy and areas where India continues to lag behind.
For example, large Chinese firms pay salaries to upper management that are roughly the same as or only somewhat less generous than those for similar positions in the United States, whereas Indian salaries, converted at the actual exchange rate rather than at the purchasing power of the Indian rupee, still lag behind. According to a 2014 survey by consulting firm Towers Watson, pay for top executives in China was on average more than double that in India when converted into dollars.
Also, perhaps surprisingly, despite concerns about pollution in China (though India’s is comparable, if not worse), China wins hands down as a favored destination for expats. In a 2013 survey by HSBC, China ranked No. 1 overall out of a total of 37 countries as a preferred expat destination.
In fact, firms in India seem to have little desire to tap the global labor market for top managers. Large Indian firms remain heavily dominated by local chief executives, often family members of the firm’s original management. Indian business even at the highest level — and among companies that are heavily globalized — remains largely autarkic and inward-looking. And there is good reason for this, though it does not necessarily speak well of the Indian economy.
A few years back, when Ratan Tata, head of the Tata conglomerate, stepped down after a protracted search for a replacement, his successor ended up being not a foreigner, as some had speculated, but Cyrus Mistry, a consummate insider and member of the extended Tata clan. If even the most cosmopolitan of Indian multinationals thought it wise to stick with a member of the family, rather than pick a star chief executive from abroad, then specific local knowledge and networks — including connections to powerful bureaucrats and government ministers — must remain hugely important at the top levels of Indian management. In this respect, India is much more similar to Japan or China than to the United States or United Kingdom.
So before Indians pat themselves on the back for exporting star chief executives, they might want to consider how this reflects the country’s failures. How can India produce a business environment that nurtures and provides incentives and opportunities to high-performing individuals like Nadella or Pichai, leveling the playing field with Western multinationals? And second, how can India foster a more competitive and innovative environment, one that produces new companies like Microsoft and Google?
While Indians bask in the reflected glory, the real winners are Indian-Americans. They’ll see role models they can emulate without worrying about a glass ceiling — a very American success story after all. And Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would do well to reflect on this as he prepares for a visit to Silicon Valley next month.
An interesting aspect of the construction of identity is the term “South Asian.” In multiple surveys, Indian Americans identify themselves in different ways, but few do so as South Asian. A small section of academics and activist groups, however, are as committed to the term as the population in question appears not to be. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court heard an affirmative action case: Fisher v. University of Texas.111 Three Indian-American groups joined an amicus brief opposing race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Texas at Austin. They argued that “Asian Americans are the new Jews,” because policies to promote diversity through race-conscious admissions in college admissions in effect discriminated against them, drawing a parallel with past discriminatory policies that excluded Jews from many universities. Conversely, several South Asian organizations signed on to an amicus brief in Fisher supporting race-conscious policies, arguing that “Asian-Americans continue to face racial discrimination and benefit from race-conscious policies, which help to break down racial stereotypes by facilitating interactions between students of diverse groups.” The three organizations that signed on to the anti-affirmative action brief all emphasized “Indian” identity, while those that supported race-conscious policies preferred the “South Asian” designation.
Chakravorty, Sanjoy. The Other One Percent (Modern South Asia) (pp. 180-181). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
One of the reviewers of this manuscript had an intriguing question: did the coincidence of upper-caste status and high education and income among the India-born and their strong adherence to endogamy lead to an inadvertent creation by the U.S. immigration system of a new English-speaking super caste that was both upper caste and wealthy? We were intrigued by the boldness of this suggestion, but were hesitant to go so far as to endorse a “super caste” category. Not only did we not have the data to make such a big claim, but took note of some broadening of the selection base in India that may, over a longer run, create more class heterogeneity. This heterogeneity will almost surely not include India’s most marginalized groups—Adivasis, Dalits, and Muslims—in large numbers or anywhere close to their proportions in India, but is likely to reflect the pattern of political representation in the homeland in which the middle castes—similar to but not congruent with Other Backward Classes (OBCs)—are better represented.
Chakravorty, Sanjoy. The Other One Percent (Modern South Asia) (p. 313). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
https://www.freepressjournal.in/analysis/its-time-to-impose-an-exit-tax-on-the-rich-and-educated-whore-fleeing-india-says-bharat-jhunjhunwala
The report of the Afro Asian Bank says that one main reason for emigration from a country is safety. The rich like to migrate if they find that their families are not safe. Religious disturbances are said to be the second reason. The presence of religious disputes leads to agitations and endangers the security. The third reason is freedom of media and entertainment. This is important because the rich may want to live in a ‘free’ environment. They do not like that they may be prevented from obtaining information freely or may not be able to express themselves freely.
The fourth reason is the low rate of economic growth. We may understand this to indicate the less availability of opportunities, which again translates into social disturbances. The government must deal with these issues. The Indian economy has become like an inverted funnel that is sucking out the wealth and sending it to foreign countries. No wonder our GDP growth rate has been declining in the last six years. The government must consider the following steps to manage these reasons for emigration.
First, the government must institute external evaluation of all senior police officers. The Fifth Pay Commission had recommended the external evaluation of all Class A officers of the government. However, this was put in cold storage at the behest of the bureaucrats. The implementation of such evaluation would provide the government with better information regarding the police officers that are more efficient in controlling crime.
An Indian institute of religions
Second, the Prime Minister had expressed his resolve to make Varanasi the global spiritual capital. Followers of different religions live together peacefully in countries like Malaysia and states like Kerala in our country. One reason is that the followers are more aware about the beliefs of the other religions and do not consider them antagonistic to their beliefs. The government must establish an ‘Indian Institute of Religions’ on the lines of IITs and IIMs in each state. Departments of different religions may be stablished in these institutes so that a constructive dialogue takes place and better understanding is created between the religions.
Three, Kabir had said “Keep critics near you. They clean up your temperament without soap and water.” The government must give special advertisements to those print media and TV channels that engage in constructive criticism of the government. This will create an atmosphere of freedom in the minds of the rich. The rich will then not be afraid and not want to emigrate for this reason.
Four, our GDP growth rate has been declining in the last six years. At the same time the share markets have been rising and rising. The reason for these contradictory movements is that our economic policies are supporting large businesses and making it difficult for the small businesses to survive. This policy of killing small businesses and handing over their market to large business on a platter was supposedly to make it attractive for the rich to stay in India. It is having exactly the opposite effect, however.
Small businesses dying
The killing of small businesses is leading to less demand in the economy, lower growth rate and less opportunities for the rich even though they may be making more profits immediately. This is like the plentiful availability of chocolates but no bread. In the end, the rich are leaving despite making profits because they do not see the economy growing.
https://statisquoxaviers.wordpress.com/2018/03/29/the-rule-of-divide-how-the-iits-have-wastefully-consumed-the-higher-education-landscape-in-india/
At his first convocation address at IIT Kharagpur, Nehru put forth his idea of the IITians expanding Indian Industry specifically from
“We take all the trouble to put up this expensive Institute and train people here” which would be “fantastically stupid” if they were to be of no service to the nation and it’s technical growth. The IITs, primarily being specialized training institutes, have always been at the feeding hand of academic-industry relations, much preferred by regulatory bodies. However these relations, took an unimaginable when students were made to consider employment as their primary goals, which multinationals and foreign technical companies began offering post liberalization of the economy. Moreover massive publicity given to students securing the highest packages, further reinforced the importance of job packages being an IITians’ foremost priorities. Moreover multinationals, consultancy services and financial bigwigs offered more lucrative salaries, luring students to move away from fields of their specialized learning at IIT. Nearly 41% of IIT Bombay graduates, who passed out before 2000,settled in the United States, some studies displaying figures of four on five IITians living in the United States. Recent trends show more migration towards Europe and South East Asian Countries, as well as an increasing number of graduates staying back. This curtailed migration can be attributed to the entry of companies like Godrej, Bajaj Auto and Videocon, hiring technical professionals on the basis of their field of study. The lure towards an MBA and a career in banking still exists rampantly amongst many IIT engineers, as again enviable money is still on offer there.
Pandit Nehru, anticipated a narrowing focus and hence laid emphasis on turning good engineers and good men and women. The Humanities and Social Sciences Departments were crafted with the human aspect in mind. Unfortunately only 7 of the IITs, the older ones have a HSS department. Most of these departments have been established only in the last decade and a half, and have been excessively commercialized. Economics turned into mathematical modelling, philosophy into logic, and psychology into HR. Moreover as the Indian economy grew in orientation towards a service sector economy, agriculture and manufacturing took a backseat, drawing most IITians towards finance and IT jobs.
The IITs have a significant role to play in the Indian Brain Drain, with massive budgetary allocations accorded to them, increasing every year. Most of these coveted institutes, receive a lion’s share of the education budget, perpetuating the divide between these institutes and other higher education universities run by the government. These figures, only go on to increase every year validated by the creation of new IITs, which do not live upto the standards set by the older ones. Few of the newer IITs have been constructed on disputed land, in dilapidated buildings. Until the budget for FY 17-18, the share of higher education funds diverted towards the 23 IITs and 31 NITs, grew every year for five years, leading to a trim down of accordance towards other premier institutions such as Delhi University, National Institute of Science, Education and Research (NISER), and IISc.
https://youtu.be/pXpvajPupS8
US President Joe Biden lauded the contributions of Indian Americans during a conversation with NASA scientists who were involved in the historic landing of Perseverance landing at Mars. ‘Indian- Americans are taking over the country. You (Swati Mohan), my Vice President (Kamala Harris), my speech writer,’ Joe Biden said. Indian-American scientist Swati Mohan leads the guidance, navigation, and control operations of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. The President further added that the achievement of the team was exemplary and thanked them for instilling a dose of confidence in the American people. Watch the full video for all the details.
According to statisticians, the official death count of 390,000 falls far short of the pandemic’s actual toll
As coronavirus cases rose rapidly across India in April, a 70-year-old woman died at her home in the eastern state of Bihar. A rapid antigen test for Covid-19 had been positive, and a lung scan had indicated viral pneumonia and the “possibility of Covid infection.”
But Shila Singh’s death hasn’t been counted among India’s Covid-19 toll.
The institute (for Health Metrics & Evaluation) modeling suggests the true Covid-19 death toll in India exceeds 1.1 million, close to three times the reported number. Dr. Murray estimates the scale of the undercount is similar to those in some countries in Latin America or Africa. He said the institute estimates India has detected only about 3% to 5% of all infections due to insufficient testing.
Murad Banaji, a mathematician at the Middlesex University in London who has been tracking the pandemic in India, estimates the country’s real death toll could be around five times the reported figure, based partly on mortality and serosurvey data, which shows the presence of antibodies in the population.
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India has officially recorded more than 390,000 coronavirus deaths, but families who have lost loved ones, health experts and statisticians say that vastly undercounts the true toll. Families like Mrs. Singh’s have been left struggling to get compensation that some states have set up for Covid-19 victims.
India’s undercount has also left a huge gap in the world’s understanding of the impact of the Delta variant, which health experts believe helped drive one of the world’s worst Covid-19 surges in April and May. India was the first to detect the highly infectious variant, which has hopscotched around the world. It is fueling a surge in the U.K., and is expected to become the dominant variant in the U.S.
An accurate count of Covid-19 infections and deaths is “a very important part of understanding how big a threat new variants are,” said Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
ndian-Jewish partnership in the United States isn’t a new story. It has been growing for years.
By JASON ISAACSON JULY 6, 2017 21:18
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/indian-americans-and-american-jews-advancing-a-trilateral-alliance-498989
As an organization that has been deeply involved in promoting Indian-Israeli and Indian-US relations for a quarter- century, it was no surprise that American Jewish Committee played a role this week in the historic visit to Israel by the Indian prime minister – helping to organize programs at two Israeli think tanks, welcoming senior leadership of the Indian business community, and taking part in high-level meetings.
What may have been a surprise to some was the presence here of prominent figures in the Indian American community – notably M.R. Rangaswami, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is founder of the organization Indiaspora, and Dr. Bharat Barai, a Chicago physician and founder of the Global Indian- Jewish Relations Institute, who has been close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi since before the Indian leader’s tenure as chief minister of Gujarat.
But Mr. Rangaswami, Dr. Barai and other Indian American leaders, true friends of Israel, were in exactly the right place. Both men, longtime partners of AJC in deepening Indian- Jewish intercommunal partnership in the United States, are committed advocates of the trilateral alliance – of India, Israel and the United States – that this week’s visit, combined with last week’s visit of Prime Minister Modi to Washington, promises to dramatically strengthen.
Indian-Jewish partnership in the United States isn’t a new story. It has been growing for years – the natural result of obvious cultural affinities and compatibilities, high-achieving minority group status, attachment to a distant ancestral homeland, and common fears of extremism. It has been championed over the years by US Indian and Jewish community activists, strategic thinkers, business leaders and political visionaries – including the late Rep. Stephen Solarz, the Brooklyn Democrat who once addressed the Indian parliament to a standing ovation, and former Rep. Gary Ackerman, driving force in the Congressional Caucus on India, who retired in 2013.
Together, a coalition of Indian Americans and American Jews that AJC was privileged to help assemble made the case to wary US lawmakers and nonproliferation activists for passage of the landmark US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, the turning point in strategic ties between New Delhi and Washington, which was sketched out by president George W.
Bush and prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2005, announced in fuller detail in early 2006, but not adopted by Congress until late 2008. The long slog toward enactment, surviving international negotiations by nuclear regulators and breathtaking political brinkmanship in India, cemented working relations between the two communities.
Together, Indian Americans and American Jews have fiercely promoted the principles of pluralism and mutual respect – principles increasingly tested in the public arena.
Large gaps in education levels persist, but all faiths are making gains – particularly among women
Hindus in India, who make up a large majority of the country’s population (and more than 90% of the world’s Hindus), have relatively low levels of educational attainment – a nationwide average of 5.5 years of schooling. While they are more highly educated than Muslims in India (14% of the country’s population), they lag behind Christians (2.5% of India’s population). By contrast, fully 87% of Hindus living in North America hold post-secondary degrees – a higher share than any other major religious group in the region.
https://www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/religion-and-education-around-the-world/
India’s Muslim communities have faced decades of discrimination, which experts say has worsened under the Hindu nationalist BJP’s government.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/india-muslims-marginalized-population-bjp-modi
Summary
Some two hundred million Muslims live in India, making up the predominantly Hindu country’s largest minority group.
For decades, Muslim communities have faced discrimination in employment and education and encountered barriers to achieving wealth and political power. They are disproportionately the victims of communal violence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling party have moved to limit Muslims’ rights, particularly through the Citizenship Amendment Act, which allows fast-tracked citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from nearby countries.
“The longer Hindu nationalists are in power, the greater the change will be to Muslims’ status and the harder it will be to reverse such changes,” says Ashutosh Varshney, an expert on Indian intercommunal conflict at Brown University.
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/pakistani-physicians-of-st-louis-acknowledge-their-heroes-appna-who-forge-ahead-against-pandemic/63-4f5df9a5-15cb-4058-900f-3cf58ff1645e
T. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America recognized healthcare workers for being on the front lines during the ongoing pandemic.
"I think there's strength in numbers," said Dr. Tariq Alam, St. Louis Chapter President of APPNA. "One physician alone can't win this fight. We all have to pour in our ideas. Get the best from everyone and get the best solution for our region."
For the 250-plus members, collaborating across healthcare networks in our region was easy, Dr. Alam said. He also says it brought doctors closer to the community.
"We have many who have language barriers, or economic barriers," Dr. Alam said. "Basically being able to reach out to them, I think that is one of our highlights."
Member and St. Louis County Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan said there's not enough praise to go around.
"The only reason we aren't looking at a 3 million or 4 million death count is because of the selfless work and sacrifice of healthcare providers across the country," Dr. Khan said. "We owe them everything."
Khan said the work isn't done yet.
"I am very happy that nearly 35% in the St. Louis region is vaccinated," Dr. Khan said. "I am equally worried that 65% of us are not. We are not out of this yet."
Khan is happy that county leaders support strong health guidelines until we cross the finish line. He said it's going to take more community action before things return to normal.
"It depends entirely on how the virus behaves, on the number of people getting vaccinated and the spread of disease in smaller communities in high-risk groups," Khan said.
Until then, doctors say mask up and get the vaccine or encourage others to do so.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57773502
A teenage basketball prodigy has become the first African American to win the US Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from New Orleans, Louisiana, cruised to victory with the word "murraya", a type of tropical tree.
To get to that point she had to spell out "querimonious" and "solidungulate".
Despite practising for up to seven hours a day, she describes spelling as a side hobby - Zaila's main focus is on becoming a basketball pro.
She already holds three world records for dribbling multiple balls at once, and has appeared in an advertisement with the NBA megastar Stephen Curry.
Zaila saw off a field of 11 finalists on Thursday to win the title and bagged a first-place prize of $50,000 (£36,000) at the event in Orlando, Florida.
In the final round, she beat 12-year-old Chaitra Thummala of Frisco, Texas.
It was the first time since 2008 that at least one champion or co-champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee was not of South Asian descent, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Why do Indian-Americans win spelling bee contests?
Zaila had earlier in the evening hesitated over the word nepeta, a herbal mint, but managed to spell it correctly.
"For spelling, I usually try to do about 13,000 words [per day], and that usually takes about seven hours or so," the home-schooled teen told New Orleans paper the Times-Picayune.
"We don't let it go way too overboard, of course. I've got school and basketball to do."
Zaila is the second black girl to win the tournament - Jody-Anne Maxwell, of Jamaica, was crowned champion in 1998 at the age of 12.
In 2019, eight children came joint-first for the first time in the spelling bee's history. The tournament was cancelled last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first time non-white and women astronauts were selected by NASA was in 1978 as the agency looked to add candidates with a wide variety of backgrounds for its then-upcoming Space Shuttle program.
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Sirisha Bandla is one of five people joining billionaire Richard Branson on board a Virgin Galactic flight to space on Sunday.
The 34-year-old scientist is Virgin Galactic's vice president of government affairs and research, and will be handling a University of Florida research project onboard.
When V.S.S. Unity reaches its maximum 55-miles up, Bandla will become only the second India-born woman and third person of Indian descent to leave Earth's atmosphere. Although there is some debate about the point at which the planet ends and space begins.
The scientist has spoken out about a lack of diversity in the space industries—and space itself—in the months leading up to the flight.
"Women and people of color you don't often see...I don't often see students that look like myself in this industry just yet," Bandla said in a September 2020 interview with Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship, a program helping college students into the commercial spaceflight industry.
Historically, most astronauts have been white, male, and military.
Analysis of NASA's intake from 1959 to 2017 by National Geographic, however, has shown how things are changing at the space agency. It did not look at the emerging private space industry, of which Virgin Galactic is a part.
Wealthy Indians are increasingly domiciling their families and businesses overseas for better investment opportunities, wealth preservation, lifestyle, and health care.
Some of the most sought-after residential visas are for countries, such as the US, the UK, Portugal, and Greece. These jurisdictions provide various investment options, as well as attractive returns on real estate. “After the lull in immigration programmes during the initial phases of the pandemic, we are now seeing more and more families evaluating alternative residencies and citizenship programmes,” said ...
SUMITRA BADRINATHAN, DEVESH KAPUR, JONATHAN KAY, MILAN VAISHNAV
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/09/social-realities-of-indian-americans-results-from-2020-indian-american-attitudes-survey-pub-84667
U.S. Census data affirm that Indian Americans enjoy a standard of living that is roughly double that of the median American household, underpinned by substantially greater educational attainment—the share of Indian Americans with at least a bachelor’s degree is twice the national average.4 However, these aggregate figures mask severe inequalities within the community. Although overall levels of poverty are lower than the American average,5 there are concentrated pockets of deprivation, especially among the large number of unauthorized immigrants born in India and residing in the United States.6
Additionally, a narrow focus on demographics such as income, wealth, education, and professional success can obscure important (and sometimes uncomfortable) social truths. What are the social realities and lived experiences of Indian Americans? How does this group perceive itself, and how does it believe others perceive it? To what extent does the community exhibit signs of shared solidarity, and are there signs of division as the group grows in number and diversity? These are some questions this paper attempts to address.
While the social realities of Indian Americans are often glossed over, recent events have brought them to the fore. In 2020, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against U.S.-based technology company Cisco Systems after an employee from one of India’s historically marginalized caste communities (“Dalits”) alleged that some of his upper caste Indian American colleagues discriminated against him on the basis of his caste identity.7 The suit, and subsequent media melee, triggered a wave of wrenching testimonials about the entrenched nature of caste—a marker of hierarchy and status associated with Hinduism (as well as other South Asian religions)—within the diaspora community in the United States.8
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Thirty percent of non-citizen IAAS respondents possess a green card (or a permanent residency card), which places them on a pathway to gaining U.S. citizenship. Twenty-seven percent are H-1B visa holders, a visa status for high-skilled or specialty workers in the United States that has historically been dominated by the technology sector. On average, an H-1B visa holder reports living in the United States for eight years, although 36 percent of H-1B beneficiaries report spending more than a decade in the country (that is, they arrived before 2010). Eighteen percent of non-citizens reside in the United States on an H-4 visa, a category for immediate family members of H-1B visa holders. Fourteen percent of non-citizens are on F-1, J-1, or M-1 visas—categories of student or scholar visas—while another 5 percent hold an L-1 visa, a designation available to employees of an international company with offices in the United States. A small minority of non-citizen respondents—6 percent—claim some other visa status.
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Ten percent of IAAS respondents identify as “South Asian American,” a term which refers to diaspora populations from countries across the region such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Six percent choose no hyphenation at all and identify only as “American” and another 6 percent classify themselves as “Asian American,” an identity category that includes a wide range of diaspora groups from the Asian continent. Two percent of respondents identify as “Other,” indicating that none of the declared options satisfy them, while just 1 percent identify as “Non-resident Indian,” the official appellation used by the Government of India to refer to Indian passport holders living outside of India.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/india-america-caste/620583/
A 2016 study by Equality Labs, an American civil-rights organization focused on caste, found that 41 percent of South-Asian Americans who identify as lower-caste reported facing caste discrimination in U.S. schools and universities, compared with 3 percent of upper-caste respondents. The survey indicated that 67 percent of lower-caste respondents said they had suffered caste discrimination in the workplace, versus 1 percent of upper-caste individuals. (The survey of more than 1,500 people focused on Hindus. Though upper castes hold more power, caste discrimination is more complex than simply being meted out by upper castes against lower castes, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Equality Labs’s executive director, told me. “In fact,” she said, “it is all castes against all castes.”)
More recently, a September 2020 study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that first-generation Indian immigrants to the U.S. were significantly more likely than U.S.-born respondents to espouse a caste identity. The overwhelming majority of Hindus with a caste identity—more than eight in 10—self-identified as upper-caste, and first-generation immigrants in particular tended to self-segregate, making their communities more and more homogenous in terms of religion and caste. Respondents to the Carnegie survey had varying responses to experiencing different forms of discrimination, depending on whether the discrimination occurred in the U.S. or in India, and who suffered from it. Overall, 73 percent viewed white supremacy as a threat to American democracy, but only 53 percent saw Hindu majoritarianism as a threat to Indian democracy. On the question of affirmative action in university admissions, the data suggest higher levels of support for the policy in the U.S. (54 percent) than India (47 percent).
The anguish caused by casteism is much like that caused by racism, resulting not simply from hateful slurs but from an expansive and intimate system woven into behavior, cultural practice, and economics. On a granular level, upper-caste Hindus do not share utensils or drinking water with those of lower castes, and lighter skin tones are preferred to darker ones. On a systemic level, society self-segregates, with upper castes often congregating in the same neighborhoods; the achievements of upper-caste Hindus come at least partially at the expense of lower-caste communities.
The system dictates that every child inherits their family’s caste, which is indicated by a person’s middle and last name—the name of one’s village and the profession of the family. Caste determines social status and spiritual purity and defines what jobs a person can do and whom they can marry. As outlined in Hindu mythology, men were created unequal by Lord Brahma, the Creator, supreme among the triad of Hindu gods that also includes Lord Shiva, the Destroyer, and Lord Vishnu, the Preserver. From Brahma’s head came the Brahmans—priests and intellectuals. From his arms came kings and warriors; from his thighs, white-collar workers; and from his feet, blue-collar workers. A fifth group, once described as untouchables, was kept outside of the caste system entirely, its place in the social order to clean toilets, sweep streets, and dispose of dead bodies. (The word pariahcomes from the Tamil language and refers to one of the most persecuted and lowest of caste groups, the paṛaiyar, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Pariah is a global standard for social outcasts, but Tamil-Brahman families, including mine, use it as a term of abuse, and it has come to mean “someone who is despised.”)
The top three groups—Brahmans, warriors, and traders—are the upper castes and can intermarry and dine with one another.
@umarsaif
Some reality check …
Twitter- Parag Agarwal
Google - Sundar Pichai
Microsoft - Satya Nadella
IBM - Arvind Krishna
Adobe- Shantanu Narayen
VMWare - Raghu Raghuram
Vimeo - Anjali Sud
Google Cloud - Thomas Kurian
NetApp - George Kurian
Palo Alto Networks - Nikesh Arora
https://twitter.com/umarsaif/status/1465622837641859077?s=20
2013 data set with some new fields of information that allowed us to calculate the distribution of college degrees by field and country of birth. The following fields had the highest shares of the India-born in the United States: electrical engineering technology—24 percent; computer engineering—19 percent; botany—11 percent; computer science—11 percent; metallurgical engineering—10 percent; electrical engineering—10 percent. Note that these shares of India-born were relative to the entire population in the United States. That is, 24 percent of all electrical engineering technology graduates and 19 percent of all computer engineering graduates in the United States were born in India.
Chakravorty, Sanjoy. The Other One Percent (Modern South Asia) (p. 311). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
In 1990, about 22 percent of the India-born had bachelor’s degrees and 26 percent had advanced degrees. By 2000, these proportions had grown to 29 and 32 percent, respectively. And by 2010, these proportions had grown to 32 and 37 percent, respectively. The figures for 2000 and 2010 were derived from the Census Bureau’s site DataFerret. The 1990 figures were calculated from the Census Bureau’s report. See “1990 Census of Population: The Foreign-Born Population in the United States,” www.census.gov/prod/cen1990/
Chakravorty, Sanjoy. The Other One Percent (Modern South Asia) (p. 312). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
47. In 1990, about 22 percent of the India-born had bachelor’s degrees and 26 percent had advanced degrees. By 2000, these proportions had grown to 29 and 32 percent, respectively. And by 2010, these proportions had grown to 32 and 37 percent, respectively. The figures for 2000 and 2010 were derived from the Census Bureau’s site DataFerret. The 1990 figures were calculated from the Census Bureau’s report. See “1990 Census of Population: The Foreign-Born Population in the United States,” www.census.gov/prod/cen1990/
Chakravorty, Sanjoy. The Other One Percent (Modern South Asia) (p. 312). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
@rupasubramanya
on India’s continued brain drain: Since 2014, almost a million people have given up Indian citizenship. Many of the most talented and ambitious Indians still make a beeline for the West.
https://twitter.com/dhume/status/1469869099102703623?s=20
The Indian Institute of Technology is an elite network of 23 engineering schools which boasts the ‘the most difficult admission exam on the planet’
‘IITians’ include Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Micron Technology’s Nikesh Arora and Sun Microsystems’ Vinod Khosla
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3160906/whats-secret-behind-indias-iit-which-produced-twitter-chief?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3160906
Above the imposing main entrance of the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), which opened back in 1951, is the motto “Service to the Nation”. For years, as many graduates of the country’s elite network of engineering schools headed off for greener pastures in the US, the joke among Indians was “which nation?”.
Twitter’s new chief Parag Agrawal recently joined a long list of talented IIT graduates who have become tech titans in Silicon Valley, including Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Micron Technology’s Nikesh Arora and Sun Microsystems’ Vinod Khosla to name just a few.
By global standards, IIT – which has grown to 23 campuses around India – is way down the academic league tables, according to the widely used QS World University rankings. IIT Bombay fared best of all Indian educational institutions in 2021, coming 177 out of the leading 200 universities in the QS global rankings. By contrast, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was in top position. While IIT scores well on employer reputation, with 70 out of 100 points, it loses heavily on its lack of international students and faculty.
https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/01/01/why-brahmins-lead-western-firms-but-rarely-indian-ones
what do the chief executives of Adobe, Alphabet, ibm, Match Group (which owns Tinder), Microsoft, OnlyFans (a subscription service featuring content creators in various stages of undress) and Twitter have in common? All seven happen to be of Indian origin. That is not surprising considering the abundance of subcontinental talent drifting into Western companies: in recent years Indians have been granted well over two-thirds of America’s h-1b visas for highly skilled workers.
But these particular bosses share something else, too. They are all top-caste Hindus. Four are Brahmins. Traditionally associated with the priesthood and learning, this pinnacle of the caste pyramid’s 25,000-plus sub-groups makes up just 50m or so of India’s 1.4bn people. The other three ceos come from castes traditionally associated with commerce or “scribal” professions such as book-keeping. These groups account for a similarly slim section of the pyramid’s capstone: the 30% of Hindus that the government classes as “forward” castes, as opposed to the 70% who fall among such categories as “backward” or “scheduled” castes (Dalits, formerly known as untouchables) and “scheduled tribes”
@dalitdiva
(Thenmozhi Soundarajan)
In the grand silicon valley tradition of white cismen passing the torch to Brahmin cismen Jack Dorsey is stepping down and Parag Agarwal is the new CEO of Twitter. Will he also remain silent about Caste? #casteintech
https://twitter.com/dalitdiva/status/1465358123640655875?s=20
Remember Microsoft went from Steve Ballmer to Satya Nadella & Alphabet from Larry Page to Sundar Pinchai. These companies still have caste discrimination while having leadership that is racially diverse but caste priviliged. DEI is the need of the hour. #Casteintech
https://twitter.com/dalitdiva/status/1465358125616152581?s=20
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/elizabeth-holmes-verdict-theranos-trial-rcna9022 via @nbcnews
The government's case included text messages between Holmes' former business partner and ex-boyfriend, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, discussing Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou. The couple expressed concerns over Carreyrou writing a negative article, with Balwani promising to "nail" the reporter.
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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of four federal fraud charges Monday and acquitted on four others while a jury deadlocked on the three remaining charges after months of trial.
Holmes, 37, was the force behind a modernized blood test —advertising a cheap finger prick that could offer comprehensive results for a number of medical issues. But The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015 that Theranos devices were inaccurate, beginning the company's eventual downfall.
She was initially facing 12 fraud counts, but one was dismissed earlier in her trial, the result of an earlier error by prosecutors. Holmes potentially faced 20 years in prison, fines and potential restitution to defrauded investors.
The jury spent seven days going over the evidence and charges. On the third day of deliberations, jurors asked the judge to listen to audio clips of a 2013 call Holmes had with investors.
A week into deliberations, the jury sent a note that said it was deadlocked on three charges. Judge Edward J. Davila, at the prosecutor’s request, read the jury instructions known as an “Allen charge” — telling them to resume deliberations and attempt to reach a verdict on the outstanding charges.
The jury remained unable to reach a unanimous verdict, they said in another note Monday.
In a statement the UCSD’s Critical Gender Studies Program has stated that Saiba Varma’s courses have been dropped. Daughter of a RAW officer, Saiba Varma has authored, 'The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir,'
https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/university-of-california-san-diego-drops-author-saiba-verma-from-curriculum/408530
The Critical Gender Studies program at UCSanDiego has disaffiliated itself from the author of The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir, Dr Saiba Varma. The critical book by Varma was published by Duke University in the US and Yoda Press in India.
In a statement the UCSD’s Critical Gender Studies Program says, responding to the calls by Kashmiri scholars and activists to repudiate Dr. Varma’s research as part of a broader struggle “against an intensifying Indian settler-colonial rule in Kashmir since 2019, a crackdown against social media communications, and a pattern of arrests of prominent activists in recent months,” CGS has disaffiliated from Dr Varma, meaning that her courses will no longer count toward our major or minor.
“This may be a small act in the scheme of things, but we believe it is a necessary one as we work through our complicities and think seriously about who we must prioritize in our claims of accountability,” the statement reads.
Dr Saiba Varma, Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department and a former CGS Executive Committee member and Faculty Affiliate, came under severe criticism in September last year after her book The Occupied Clinic: Militarism and Care in Kashmir came to fore.
In the introduction of the book the author says, “Borrowing and extending techniques from British colonial rule, the Indian state enacted the world’s most established, sophisticated, and pervasive systems of emergency rule and legislation and repeatedly criminalized pro-independence demands as ‘conspiracies’ and ‘anti-national.’ The Indian state’s global image as ‘the world’s largest democracy,’ a generous aid donor, and non-interventionist actor have helped disguise its military excesses in Kashmir and other border regions.”
“As an upper-caste and upper-class Indian citizen and subject, I have actively and passively internalized anti-Muslim racism my entire life. I am complicit in the colonization of Kashmir and other regions forcibly incorporated into the Indian nation-state.”
“As Stuart Hall once powerfully stated, there is no such thing as an innocent discourse. To add: there is no such thing as an innocent Indian. In other words, there is no innocent way for any other scholar of Indian origin, including myself, to engage with Kashmir (or any of the other colonialisms underway in the subcontinent) without acknowledging our own embeddedness in histories of violence and harm.”
She, however, was accused of hiding her familial ties while doing research in Kashmir. The author’s father being an officer with Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), who was posted in the Valley in the 90s created a Twitter storm around the book.
In a statement titled “CGS Executive Committee's Statement Regarding Former CGS Faculty Affiliate, Dr. Saiba Varma” the UCSD’s Critical Gender Studies Program says, “...it understands the study of gender to be inextricably bound up with the interlocking systems of race, class, sexuality and nationalism.” “New faculty on the current Executive Committee bring commitments that are focused explicitly on ethically, intellectually, politically, and spiritually supporting the freedoms of all people.”
A video of a teenage boy in India telling a reporter why classrooms are more important than temples has garnered attention online.
The clip, which has gone viral on social media, shows a local reporter from SM News interviewing a 13-year-old boy from Varanasi city, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Asked what he plans to do when he grows up, the boy said he wants to serve his community by becoming an Indian Administrative Service officer.
When the reporter then asked the teen about going to temple, he talked about the merits of schools instead. “When we study, then we’ll get a job,” the boy said.
According to the young interviewee, he would “rather be in a classroom” because schools are more important.
“God has not blessed us,” he reasoned. “God will not give us anything. But education will.”
The stunned reporter then asked him about his caste, a social system that divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups and has long been used for discriminatory practices in Indian society.
“I am from the Chamar community,” the boy answered.
The reporter remarked: “You are from the Chamar community, and you say this with such pride!”
Under modern India’s system of affirmative action, Chamars are classified as a Scheduled Caste, the lowest in the caste hierarchy. Being called a Chamar is considered derogatory in India.
While discrimination based on the caste system has been banned in India since 1948, its existence over thousands of years continues to provide the upper castes with societal privileges while the lower castes remain repressed and limited in job opportunities.
The teen said that instead of looking up to gods in a temple, he admires Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, a member of a low-caste community who went on to become a notable Indian scholar, politician, jurist, social reformist and author of the Indian constitution.
Ambedkar, also referred to as an honorific title Babasaheb, was instrumental in leading public movements that advocate for marginalized communities.
With the crowd starting to boo the reporter, he went on to ask the teen why he would want to worship Ambedkar but not the gods.
“Babasaheb gave us reservation and constitution,” the boy said. “What did gods do for us? We don’t go to a temple, we go to schools. God has given us nothing. I would rather get an education in a school.”
The two-minute clip has been widely shared across social media platforms, receiving many comments from social media users who were impressed by the boy’s response.
Leading Indian-Americans, including US Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, have slammed a law professor from University of Pennsylvania for her disparaging comments about the Asian American community, with a specific disdain for Indian-Americans.
In a recent interview to Fox News, Prof Amy Wax from the University of Pennsylvania alleged that “Blacks” and “non-Western” groups have “a tremendous amount of resentment and shame against western people for [their] outsized achievements and contributions.” “Here's the problem. They're taught that they are better than everybody else because they are Brahmin elites and yet, on some level, their country is a sh*thole,” Wax, who has a long history of inflammatory remarks, said.
She also said that the westerners have outgunned and outclassed the Asian Americans in every way.
“They've realised that we've outgunned and outclassed them in every way… They feel anger. They feel envy. They feel shame. It creates ingratitude of the most monstrous kind,” she said.
Wax then targeted the influential Indian-American doctors' community as well. “They are on the ramparts for the antiracism initiative for ‘dump on America,'” she alleged.
The comment was condemned by the Indian-Americans across the US.
“After President Trump left office, I thought the days of calling others “shithole” countries were over,” Krishnamoorthi said in a tweet.
“As an Indian-American immigrant, I'm disgusted to hear this UPenn Professor define Indian-American immigrants, and all non-white Americans, in such insulting terms,” he said.
Stating that such comments are borne of hatred and fear, he emphasised that such talks make it much harder to accomplish common-sense immigration reform.
“Comments like these are borne of hatred and fear, and they lead to real harm for my constituents and our minority communities. They fuel hate crimes against minorities, and they make it much harder to accomplish common-sense immigration reform,” Krishnamoorthi said.
Indian-American Law professor Neil Makhija also slammed Wax for her comments.
“It's irresponsible to use your position to lend credibility to these overtly racist sentiments that don't recognise Indian-Americans for who we are," he told Axios.
Indian-American Impact is slated to hold a summit next month in DC Makjiha told Axios he's planning to adjust programming to discuss the incident and create solutions against anti-Asian and South Asian hate in educational settings.
“The most unfortunate thing is that we have a lot of brilliant and incredible students at the law school,” he told NBC News.
“It makes you question whether she can fairly grade or educate,” he said.
This is not the first time Wax's controversial comments about race have gone viral, the US media reported.
Her appearance on Carlson's show is not the first time Wax has made anti-Asian remarks. In an interview in December, she said that Indians Americans should be more “grateful” to be in the US and that the country would be “better off with fewer Asians.” Penn has confirmed that the school is in the middle of disciplinary proceedings against Wax, NBC News reported.
“The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School has previously made clear that Professor Wax's views do not reflect our values or practices,” it quoted a representative as saying.
“In January 2022, Dean Ruger announced that he would move forward with a University Faculty Senate process to address Professor Wax's escalating conduct, and that process is underway,” the report quoted the Penn representative as saying.
https://youtu.be/xU-MAVo1GVU
While Hindu groups like the HSS flag the report as 'unreliable', anti-Hindutva activists say that it's based on available data but not getting enough attention.
VANDANA MENON
https://theprint.in/features/a-mysterious-new-report-tells-you-who-funds-hindu-nationalism-in-us-and-with-how-much-money/995680/
Drawing upon publicly available resources, the report details the financial ties of groups in the US that are spending millions to influence American education and further the interests of the Indian government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Over almost 20 years — 2001 to 2019 — seven of these charitable groups spent at least $158.9 million, sending some of it to groups in India. Around half of this money, nearly $85.4 million, was spent between 2014 and 2019.
While Hindu groups in the US have flagged the unreliability of the report, anti-Hindutva activists have said that it is based on publicly available data but not getting enough public attention.
Titled ‘Hindu Nationalist Influence in the United States, 2014-2021: The Infrastructure of Hindutva Mobilizing,’ the report is authored by Jasa Macher and facilitated by the South Asian Citizens Web. It’s a researched update on a 2014 report, authored by someone who uses the same initials and email address: JM.
But Google the author and you won’t find a digital footprint — only references to their report.
“We find it strange that a report on the alleged nefariousness of various organisations, including our own, is likely written under an unacknowledged pseudonym, seemingly created solely for the purpose of this report,” wrote the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) to ThePrint in an email response.
Following the money
So, where does the money come from? Philanthropists among the diaspora, fundraising drives, wealthy family foundations and American taxpayers themselves.
Organisations like the Bhutada Family Foundation and the Puran Devi Aggarwal Family Foundation donated around $2 million to groups like the HAF, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), and Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA between 2006 and 2018, according to tax records. While the report points out that the donors’ ideological opinions can’t be assumed based on the fact that they’ve donated to Hindu non-profit groups, it lists the Sangh affiliations of those who head these family foundations.
According to a 2021 Al Jazeera report, five Right-wing groups — Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA, HAF, Infinity Foundation, Sewa International, and VHPA — received $833,000 of U.S. federal Covid relief funds, paid for by the American taxpayer. The HAF filed a defamation suit against the reporter, Raqib Hameed Naik, as well as others named in the report, including members of another US-based group, Hindus For Human Rights. ThePrint has reached out to the organizations mentioned in this article for their comments on the report.
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/caste-california-tech-giants-confront-ancient-indian-hierarchy-2022-08-15/
Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy By Paresh Dave
Apple, the world’s largest listed company, updated its General Employee Conduct Policy nearly two years ago to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on race, which it defined as existing categories such as race, religion, gender, age and ancestry. joined together.
The inclusion of the new category, which was not previously reported, goes beyond US discrimination laws, which do not explicitly ban racism.
The update came after the tech sector – which counts India as its top source of skilled foreign workers – received a wake-up call in June 2020 when California’s employment regulator asked Cisco on behalf of a lower-caste engineer. Systems, which accused the two upper-castes. Bosses blocking his career.
Cisco, which denies wrongdoing, says an internal investigation found no evidence of discrimination and that some allegations are unfounded because race is not a legally “protected class” in California. An appeals panel this month rejected the networking company’s bid to push the matter to private arbitration, meaning a public court case could come as early as next year.
The controversy – the first US employment lawsuit about alleged racism – has forced Big Tech to confront a millennium-old hierarchy where the social status of Indians has been based on family lineage, from the top Brahmin “priest” class to Dalits. Until, the “untouchables” and were sent to slave labor.
Since the lawsuit was filed, several activist and employee groups have begun calling for updated US discrimination legislation — and also calling on tech companies to change their policies to help fill the void and stop racism. Is.
Their efforts have produced poor results, according to a Reuters review of policy in US industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers in India.
“I’m not surprised that the policies would be inconsistent because that’s almost what you would expect if the law isn’t clear,” said Kevin Brown, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies race issues. Include it in US laws.
“I can imagine that … (a) some parts of the organization are saying it makes sense, and other parts are saying that we don’t think it makes sense to take a stance.”
Apple’s core internal policy on workplace conduct, which was spotted by Reuters, added references to equal employment opportunity and race in anti-harassment sections after September 2020.
Apple confirmed that it “updated the language a few years ago to ensure that we prohibit discrimination or harassment based on race.” It states that the training given to the employees also explicitly mentions caste.
“Our teams assess our policies, training, processes and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure they are comprehensive,” it said. “We have a diverse and global team, and we are proud that our policies and actions reflect this.”
Elsewhere in tech, IBM told Reuters that it added race, which already had India-specific policies, to its global discrimination rules after it filed a Cisco lawsuit, though it declined to give a specific date or reasoning. Gave.
The company said that IBM’s only training in which caste is mentioned is for managers in India.
Many companies do not specifically mention race in their core global policy, including Amazon, Dell, Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft and Google. Reuters reviewed each policy, some of which are published internally for employees only.
In all the messages, the male caller is heard threatening the lawmaker with dire consequences and in one instance she is being asked to go back to her country of origin, India. https://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/indian-origin-us-lawmaker-pramila-jayapal-gets-threat-messages-go-back-to-india-3329168 Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has been receiving abusive and hate messages over the phone from a male caller who even asked her to go back to India.
On Thursday, Chennai-born Jayapal posted a collection of five such audio messages.
In all the messages, portions of which have been redacted because of obscene and abusive content, the male caller is heard threatening her with dire consequences and in one instance she is being asked to go back to her country of origin, India. https://twitter.com/RepJayapal/status/1567943349763559426?s=20&t=Mt03qB4bGVD3DJhsgHaq0w
by Paresh Dave
https://biz.crast.net/refile-google-sets-rules-for-hq-guest-speakers-after-row-over-indian-historian-email/
Controversies over speakers have plagued Google since at least April, when it said internal bickering prompted the cancellation of a talk by author Thenmozhi Soundararajan on India’s socio-religious caste system, which disenfranchised people from caste prejudice. advocates.
Members of an international Hindu group complained about Sundararajan, calling her rhetoric inflammatory, an allegation she calls bigotry.
At least one critic suggested inviting Rajeev Malhotra for balance, according to internal messages. Malhotra, a tech entrepreneur turned self-described contrarian writer, has labeled activists such as Soundararajan as “snakes” and criticized affirmative action policies promoting lower caste groups.
Per an invitation, Google’s Hindu group eventually scheduled Malhotra to speak about India’s positive global impact. But according to a follow-up announcement, organizers canceled on November 10, the day before the planned talk at the Google offices in Silicon Valley.
According to a message seeking complaints, some employees complained about Malhotra to senior management. A linked document organized by the Alphabet Workers’ Union, a labor organization that is petitioning Google to name caste in its non-discrimination policies, noted Malhotra described homosexuality as a medical condition and Islam a destructive one. described as a force.
Malhotra told Reuters that he supports marginalized communities but “politicizes prejudice in ways that divide society and make them vulnerable to foreign colonialism.”
According to messages among staff, allowing Soundararajan’s speech after his speech was canceled would have contradicted standards.
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OAKLAND, California, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google this week introduced rules for inviting guest speakers to its offices, days after it canceled a talk by an Indian historian who criticized the company’s history. Marginalized groups and their concerns were dismissed, according to the email. by Reuters.
The policy released Thursday is Google’s latest effort to preserve an open culture while addressing the divisions that have emerged as its workforce has grown.
In recent years, workers at Google and other big tech companies have clashed and protested among themselves over politics and racial and gender equality. In addition, Alphabet, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc all face organizing drives from unions whose demands include that the companies adopt progressive policies.
Google speaker rules, seen by Reuters, cite risks to the brand from some talks and ask workers to “consider whether there is a business reason to host the speaker and if the event directly supports our company goals.” does.”
It called for avoiding topics that could be “disruptive or undermine Google’s culture of belonging” and reiterated that speakers are barred from advocating for political candidates and ballot measures.
“We are always proud to host external speakers at Google, as they provide great opportunities for learning and connection for our employees,” Google spokesman Ryan Lamont told Reuters. The updated process “will ensure that these events are useful and contribute to a productive work environment.”
An email introducing the policy to managers said it unifies and clarifies a patchwork of guidelines.
Greater scrutiny threatens the free-flowing, university-like culture that Google has prized since its inception. But a workplace seen as more inviting could attract a more diverse workforce that could help Google develop products with broader appeal.
Audrey Truschke is an associate professor of South Asian history at the Rutgers University in New Jersey, in the United States. Truschke’s research focuses on the history of early and modern India. She has written three books on the subject—Culture of Encounters, on Sanskrit in the Mughal courts; Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth which argues for a reassessment of the Mughal king; and the recently published Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim rule.
Truschke has regularly come under severe criticism from Hindu right-wing nationalists, who see her academic research into India’s complex multicultural past and religious history as an affront to their beliefs. Beginning with the release of her first book, Truschke has faced a constant barrage of online harassment, hate mail, co-ordinated attacks on social media, and in some cases, even censure—in August 2018, a lecture she was due to give in Hyderabad was cancelled due to security threats, after the police received letters of opposition. The same year, she faced an outpouring of threats and abuse after she tweeted that according to one loosely translated verse in Valmiki’s mythological epic Ramayana, Sita called Ram a “misogynistic pig.” Truschke discussed this interpretation and the misogynistic response from the Hindu right-wing, in an article in this publication.
In early March this year, Truschke began facing a spike in vicious threats and abuse on her various social-media profiles, including threats of rape and murder, as well as anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic slurs. The abuse referred primarily to her scholarship on India. On 9 March, Truschke tweeted that in recent days, she had faced an “avalanche of hate speech” and threats endangering her family. She said she had blocked 5,750 accounts “and counting.” A few days earlier, an anonymous Twitter account “@hinduoncampus,” which claimed to be run by Hindu students in US universities, circulated an open letter to the Rutgers administration, describing Truschke’s work as “bigotry against Hindus.” In a statement issued on 9 March, Rutgers University called for an end to the trolling, and backed Truschke’s academic freedom to pursue “controversial” scholarship. It also promised to begin a dialogue with the Hindu students on campus.
Brahmins represent Only Brahmins pray for the good for everyone even when he has nothing to eat, Manoj Muntashir said in his video slamming the anti-Brahmin slogans at JNU. “I am proud that I am Brahmin," he said in the video.Writer and lyricist Manoj Muntashir has released a video protesting the anti-Brahmin slogans which recently surfaced on the walls of Jawaharlal Nehru University triggering a massive row. In his video, Manoj Muntashir said it is a stereotype that the Brahmins are facing as everywhere they are portrayed as 'greedy and wicked'. Clarifying that he is not part of any political party, the artiste said his aim for the video was to say the truth about Brahmins.
On Thursday, the walls of the JNU campus were defaced with slogans like "Brahmins leave the campus", "There will be blood", "Brahmin Bharat Chhodo", "Brahmino-Baniyas, we are coming for you!" etc. 'Go back to Shakha' was found written inside the chambers of the Brahmin professors. While the university authorities ordered a probe, no group took responsibility for the defacement.
"Though India was plundered several times by outside forces in history, it did not lose everything and who saved these things from the plunderers? The Brahmins. I don't need to remind you that Mangal Pandey and Chanakya were Brahmins," Manoj Muntashir said."We are the kingmakers; Brahmins never hankered after power. Maharishi Vasistha never wanted to capture Ayodhya," Manoj Muntashir said adding that some people think Brahmins divided the society into castes but it is not the fact, he said. Brahmins represent the head of India and it should never be bowed down, Manoj Muntashir added.The JNU episode created a row and the university in past has been accused of fanning 'anti-national' activities. After the incident, Vishwa Hindu Parishad said coward Leftist agenda will not be successful as JNU now has adopted the idea of nationalism and social harmony/
https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/companies/infosys-founder-nr-narayana-murthy-says-iits-have-become-victims-to-rote-learning-due-to-coaching-classes-article-95545869
As more and more students leave India for higher studies, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy proposed that governments and corporates should “incentivise” researchers with grants and provide facilities to work here. “The 10,000 crore per year grants for universities under the New Education Policy will help institutions become competitive", he said.
https://youtu.be/2vzSwExIoNg
Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy on Tuesday expressed concern over India’s education system saying that even the IITs are becoming a victim of learning by rote due to the “tyranny of coaching classes.” Murthy suggested that our education system needs a reorientation directed towards Socratic questioning.
The Infosys founder, who himself is an IIT alumnus, batted for Socratic questioning in the classroom in order to arrive at solutions to real-world issues. “Many experts feel that (in) our country, (there is an) inability to use research to solve our immediate pressing problems around us… (this) is due to lack of inculcating curiosity at an early age, disconnect between pure or applied research," he said.
As to what could be done to solve this, the 76-year-old suggested that the first component is to reorient teaching in schools and colleges towards Socratic questioning in the classroom to solve real-world problems rather than passing the examinations by rote learning. Socrates was a fifth century (BCE) Greek philosopher credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
Speaking at the 14th edition of the Infosys Prize event in Bengaluru, Murthy said that the nation’s progress on the economic and social front depends on the quality of scientific and technological research. Research thrives in an environment of honour and respect for intellectuals, meritocracy and the support and approbation of such intellectuals from society, he noted.
Recruiters call the push a crucial test of whether the world’s third-largest economy can compete with the U.S. and Europe for global talent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/business/japan-indian-tech-workers.html
Mr. Puranik said fellow Indians often called him for help with emergencies or conflicts — the wandering father with dementia who ends up in police custody, the daughter mistakenly stopped by border agents at the airport. He once even fielded a call from a worker who wanted to sue his Japanese boss for kicking him.
His own son, he said, was bullied in a Japanese school — by the teacher. Mr. Puranik said he repeatedly talked to the teacher, to no avail. “She would always try to make him a criminal,” he said, adding that some teachers “feel challenged if the kid is doing anything differently.”
A similar dynamic can sometimes be found in the workplace.
Many Indian tech workers in Japan say they encounter ironclad corporate hierarchies and resistance to change, a paradox in an industry that thrives on innovation and risk-taking.
“They want things in a particular order; they want case studies and past experience,” Mr. Puranik said of some Japanese managers. “IT doesn’t work like that. There is no past experience. We have to reinvent ourselves every day.”
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As it rapidly ages, Japan desperately needs more workers to fuel the world’s third-largest economy and plug gaps in everything from farming and factory work to elder care and nursing. Bending to this reality, the country has eased strict limits on immigration in hopes of attracting hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, most notably through a landmark expansion of work visa rules approved in 2018.
The need for international talent is perhaps no greater than in the tech sector, where the government estimates that the shortfall in workers will reach nearly 800,000 in the coming years as the country pursues a long-overdue national digitization effort.
The pandemic, by pushing work, education and many other aspects of daily life onto online platforms, has magnified the technological shortcomings of a country once seen as a leader in high tech.
Japanese companies, particularly smaller ones, have struggled to wean themselves from physical paperwork and adopt digital tools. Government reports and independent analyses show Japanese companies’ use of cloud technologies is nearly a decade behind those in the United States.
“As it happens to anyone who comes to Japan, you fall in love,” said Shailesh Date, 50, who first went to the country in 1996 and is now the head of technology for the American financial services company Franklin Templeton Japan in Tokyo. “It’s the most beautiful country to live in.”
Yet the Indian newcomers mostly admire Japan from across a divide. Many of Japan’s 36,000 Indians are concentrated in the Edogawa section of eastern Tokyo, where they have their own vegetarian restaurants, places of worship and specialty grocery stores. The area has two major Indian schools where children study in English and follow Indian curricular standards.
Nirmal Jain, an Indian educator, said she founded the Indian International School in Japan in 2004 for children who would not thrive in Japan’s one-size-fits-all public education system. The school now has 1,400 students on two campuses and is building a new, larger facility in Tokyo.
Ms. Jain said that separate schools were appropriate in a place like Japan, where people tend to keep their distance from outsiders.
“I mean, they are nice people, everything is perfect, but when it comes to person-to-person relationships, it’s kind of not there,” she said.
https://cjp.org.in/2022-a-look-back-at-hate-crimes-against-dalits-and-adivasis/
To witness such incidents even in this day and age is not only disheartening but should shock the conscience of the nation.
As per the statistics provided in the NCRB report, atrocities/Crime against Scheduled Castes have increased by 1.2% in 2021 (50,900) over 2020 (50,291 cases).
Uttar Pradesh (13,146 cases) reported the highest number of cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs) accounting for 25.82% followed by Rajasthan with 14.7% (7,524) and Madhya Pradesh with 14.1% (7,214) during 2021. The next two states in the list are Bihar accounting for 11.4% (5,842) and Odisha 4.5% (2,327). The above top five states reported 70.8% of cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes.
Furthermore, as per the report, Atrocities/Crime against Scheduled Tribes have increased by 6.4% in 2021 (8,802 cases) over 2020 (8,272 cases).
Madhya Pradesh (2627, cases) reported the highest number of cases of atrocities against Scheduled Tribes (STs) accounting for 29.8% followed by Rajasthan with 24% (2121 cases) and Odisha with 7.6% (676 cases) during 2021. Maharashtra was next in the list with 7.13% (628 cases) followed by Telangana at 5.81% (512 cases). The above top five states reported 74.57% of cases of atrocities against Scheduled Tribes.
In terms of ratio to the overall population, Dalits (SCs) are estimated to be at 16.6 per cent of the population and Adivasis/Indigenous peoples (STs) at 8.6 per cent.
We look at some of the most shocking instances of crimes against Dalits and Adivasis in 2022.
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/wells-fargo-terminates-india-vp-shankar-mishra-for-urinating-on-woman-co-passenger-9823021.html
American financial services company Wells Fargo, on January 6, sacked Shankar Mishra, India Vice-President of its entity in India as Mishra, in an inebriated state, urinated on a woman in her 70s, in business class of an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi.
“This individual has been terminated from Wells Fargo. We are cooperating with law enforcement and ask that any additional inquiries be directed to them,” the company said in a statement released on January 6.
The company also said it holds its employees to the highest standards of professional and personal behaviour and that it found these allegations deeply disturbing.
After news of Mishra urinating on a woman co-passenger on board an Air India flight on November 26, 2022, was reported, the Delhi Police on January 5 wrote to the concerned authorities seeking a Look Out Circular (LOC) against Shankar Mishra.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/indians-are-top-earners-in-the-us-even-ahead-of-americans-china-pakistan-miles-behind-11994502.html
According to an American Community Survey, Indian-Americans (USD 100,500) have the highest median household income in the US. They are ahead of people from countries like Sri Lanka, Japan, China and Pakistan
Top American lawmaker Rich McCormick, while addressing the US House of Representatives, recently said that the Indian-Americans constitute about one per cent of the US population and pay about six per cent of the taxes.
What’s more interesting to know is the fact that Indians are the highest earning ethnic group in the US — ahead of people from countries like Pakistan, China and Japan.
According to US Census Bureau, 2013-15 American Community Survey, Indian-Americans (USD 100,500) have the highest median household income in the Joe Biden-led country. They are ahead of people from countries like Sri Lanka, Japan, China and Pakistan.
The data also highlights that 70 per cent of the Indian-American population in America holds a Bachelor’s degree, while the national average is just 28 per cent.
While this data is from an old survey, a more recent numbers also indicate the same thing.
According to an August 2021 report of Press Trust of India, Indians in the US, with an average household earning of USD 123,700 and 79 per cent of college graduates, have surpassed the overall American population in terms of wealth and college education.
As per the latest census data in the US, the number of people who identify as Asian in the United States nearly tripled in the past three decades, and Asians are now the fastest-growing of the nation’s four largest racial and ethnic groups, the PTI report stated.
Why Indians have highest median household income in the US?
Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Enterprises, took to Twitter to share a chart that shows Indian Americans having the highest median household income in the US. He asserted that Indians shine in the US because “we value good education and are the most educated ethnic group.”
“We work very hard along with being frugal in our habits… We are smart… We are in IT, engineering and medicine- the highest paying jobs,” he added.
How Median Household Income is calculated?
Household income usually refers to the combined gross income of all members of a household above a specified age, according to Investopedia.
The median is the middle number in a group. For example, if there are three incomes in one household of Rs 10,000, Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000, in this case median income is Rs 15,000.
Domination of Indian-Americans in the US
In his first speech in the US House of Representatives, Rich McCormick urged for a streamlined immigration process. “I rise to this occasion to just appreciate my constituents, especially those who have immigrated from India. We have a very large portion of my community that’s made up of almost 100,000 People who have immigrated directly from India. One out of every five doctors in my community is from India. They represent some of the best citizens we have in America, we should make sure that we streamline the immigration process for those who come here to obey the law and pay their taxes.”
He added, “Although they make up about 1 per cent of American society, they pay about 6 per cent of the taxes. They are amongst the top producers, and they do not cause problems. They follow laws. They don’t have the problems that we see other people have when they come to the emergency room for overdoses and depression anxiety because they’re the most productive, most family oriented and the best of what represents American citizens. God bless my Indian constituents”.
In 2013, the House of Representatives had a single Indian American member. Fewer than 10 Indian Americans were serving in state legislatures. None had been elected to the Senate. None had run for president. Despite being one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, Americans of Indian descent were barely represented in politics.
Ten years later, the Congress sworn in last month includes five Indian Americans. Nearly 50 are in state legislatures. The vice president is Indian American. Nikki Haley’s campaign announcement this month makes 2024 the third consecutive cycle in which an Indian American has run for president, and Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly announced candidacy makes it the first cycle with two.
In parts of the government, “we’ve gone literally from having no one to getting close to parity,” said Neil Makhija, the executive director of Impact, an Indian American advocacy group.
Most Indian American voters are Democrats, and it is an open question how much of their support Ms. Haley might muster. In the past, when Indian Americans have run as Republicans, they have rarely talked much about their family histories, but Ms. Haley is emphasizing her background.
Activists, analysts and current and former elected officials, including four of the five Indian Americans in Congress, described an array of forces that have bolstered the political influence of Indian Americans.
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Indians did not begin moving to the United States in large numbers until after a landmark 1965 immigration law. But a number of factors, such as the relative wealth of Indian immigrants and high education levels, have propelled a rapid political ascent for the second and third generations.
Advocacy groups — including Impact and the AAPI Victory Fund — have mobilized to recruit and support them, and to direct politicians’ attention to the electoral heft of Indian Americans, whose populations in states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas are large enough to help sway local, state and federal races.
“It’s really all working in tandem,” said Raj Goyle, a former state lawmaker in Kansas who co-founded Impact. “There’s a natural trend, society is more accepting, and there is deliberate political strategy to make it happen.”
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In retrospect, the watershed appears to have been 2016, just after then-Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana became the first Indian American to run for president.
That was also the year (2016) Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Ro Khanna of California and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois were elected, bringing the number of Indian Americans in the House from one — Representative Ami Bera of California, elected in 2012 — to four. It was also the year Kamala Harris became the first Indian American elected to the Senate.
Shree Paradkar
By Shree ParadkarSocial & Racial Justice Columnist
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/15/i-won-a-birth-lottery-on-caste-but-learned-fortune-need-not-mean-cruelty.html
I come from a Brahmin family. This means I won a birth lottery. It means that while other identities may pose barriers, caste is never one. In fact, in certain situations, it is the secret handshake that opens doors, sometimes literally.
Caste privilege looks like — among many things — never hesitating to say your last name, being considered to come from a “good family,” having a higher chance of a sheltered upbringing (innocence is prized but not granted to all women) and being treated with deference in public spaces.
Brahmins around me insist they are not casteist. They say they don’t even think about caste let alone know the names of various castes, yet their social circles are almost entirely made up of fellow Brahmins. They say that caste oppression is now reversed and that Brahmins are now the real victims, sidelined in the caste system.
These are debates without empirical data, backed up by an anecdote or two about an undeserving “lower caste” person getting this job or that. (For a Brahmin, everybody else is “lower caste.”) By various counts, Brahmins, who form about four to five per cent of the Hindu population, comprise half of Indian media decision-makers and at least a third of bureaucrats and judges. Meanwhile, according to Oxfam, Dalits’ life expectancy can be up to 15 years less than other groups.
If forced to discuss caste, Brahmins will often claim the orginal varna system was fluid at its founding thousands of years ago, again with no evidence that Dalits could ever have educated themselves enough to then be considered Brahmin. As Indian social justice advocate Dilip Mandal noted recently on Twitter Spaces, a discussion on caste is neither theological nor historical nor abstract. It’s about lived experiences today.
Being ignorant of caste is a marker of privilege. I, too, only learned of the details of the caste system thanks to the tireless advocacy of Equality Labs in the U.S. Understanding anti-Black racism awoke me to caste-based brutality. Of course, learning that one’s gloried background is the carrier of such cruelty causes harsh cognitive dissonance. Reckoning with this reality is painful, but that discomfort pales in comparison to the generations of trauma inflicted on the marginalized. There is also little point in guilt or self-hatred; both emotions, while wrenching, simply continue to centre on the self.
None of us are born with a ready-made analysis of oppression. None of us choose to be born into the identities we inherit. The least the holders of power can do is to sit quietly, listen, reflect — not “Am I complicit” but “In what ways am I complicit” — learn, make space. And then they should let go of the reins.
https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/hindutva-is-nothing-but-brahminism/215089
The author (Kancha Ilaiah) of Why I Am Not A Hindu on his view that 'Dalitisation' alone can effectively challenge the threat of Brahminical fascism parading in the garb of Hindutva.
How would you characterise contemporary Hindutva? What is the relationship between Hindutva and the Dalit-Bahujans?
As Dr.Ambedkar says, Hindutva is nothing but Brahminism. And whether you call it Hindutva or Arya Dharma or Sanatana Dharma or Hindusim, Brahminism has no organic link with Dalit-Bahujan life, world-views, rituals and even politics. To give you just one example, in my childhood many of us had not even heard of the Hindu gods, and it was only when we went to school that we learnt about Ram and Vishnu for the very first time. We had our own goddesses, such as Pochamma and Elamma, and our own caste god, Virappa. They and their festivals played a central role in our lives, not the Hindu gods. At the festivals of our deities, we would sing and dance--men, women and all-- and would sacrifice animals and drink liquor, all of which the Hindus consider 'polluting'.
Our relations with our deities were transactional and they were rooted in the production process. For instance, our goddess Kattamma Maisa. Her responsibility is to fill the tanks with water. If she does it well, a large number of animals are sacrificed to her. If in one year the tanks dry up, she gets no animals. You see, between her and her Dalit-Bahujan devotees there is this production relation which is central.
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In fact, many Dalit communities preserve traditions of the Hindu gods being their enemies. In Andhra, the Madigas enact a drama which sometimes goes on for five days. This drama revolves around Jambavanta, the Madiga hero, and Brahma, the representative of the Brahmins. The two meet and have a long dialogue. The central argument in this dialogue is about the creation of humankind. Brahma claims superiority for the Brahmins over everybody else, but Jambavanta says, 'No, you are our enemy'. Brahma then says that he created the Brahmins from his mouth, the Kshatriyas from his hands, the Vaishyas from his thighs, the Shudras from his feet to be slaves for the Brahmins, and of course the Dalits, who fall out of the caste system, have no place here. This is the Vedic story.
What you are perhaps suggesting is that Dalit-Bahujan religion can be used to effectively counter the politics of Brahminism or Hindutva. But Brahminism has this knack of co-opting all revolt against it, by absorbing it within the system.
It is true that although Dalit-Bahujan religious formations historically operated autonomously from Hindu forms, they have never been centralised or codified. Their local gods and goddesses have not been projected into universality, nor has their religion been given an all-India name. This is because these local deities and religious forms were organically linked to local communities, and were linked to local productive processes, such as the case of Virappa and Katamma Maisa whom I talked about earlier. But Brahminism has consistently sought to subvert these religious forms by injecting notions of 'purity' and 'pollution', hierarchy and untouchability even among the Dalit-Bahujans themselves, while at the same time discounting our religious traditions by condemning them as 'polluting' or by Brahminising them.