The recent Cisco case brought out the caste discrimination, a dark secret which no one had so far talked about. However, there is a big misconception and skewed narrative in the coverage by the media. Most of the articles are from brahmins, which further highlights the caste discrimination and lack of representation. Some articles explain the existence of discrimination back in India, no one talks about how the brahmins are overly represented in all the Indian Government institutions and have been in power to be able to push Brahmanic values as “Hindu values”. The increased influence by brahmins is basically an exclusionary model which has kept the non-privileged castes (“lower castes”) from being represented and assuming power and influence. It is no coincidence that currently, 12 out of 23 cabinet ministers in India are brahmins [17 if you include other upper-caste members]. Almost all these ministers are promoting some unscientific and regressive things, for example, Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, who is in charge of educational policies and institutions made some atrocious claims like a Sage conducted nuclear test million years ago in India. You can see many of these brahmins who are in powerful positions promoting unscientific things like Cow urine as a cure for COVID. 

Many such unscientific lies were promoted to keep masses in a “state of servility, ignorance and poverty” as Dr. Ambedkar wrote about the brahmin ruling class.

“For no intellectual class has prostituted its intelligence for the sole purpose of inventing a philosophy to keep his uneducated countrymen in a perpetual state of servility, ignorance and poverty as the Brahmins have done in India. Every Brahmin to-day believes in this philosophy of Brahmanism propounded by his forefathers.”

Now coming back to the coverage of the Cisco case by the mainstream media, most of the articles written by brahmin savarnas, don’t even mention that brahmins as the ruling and intellectual class owing to their brahminical hegemony in education and media houses. This can explain the fact that even without systematic and institutionalized support, the brahmins are able to build and replicate India‘s exclusionary model here in the US through their social caste capital. 

Further, such an exclusionary model isn’t only against ‘lower castes’, it’s going to be used against all ‘others’, those who don’t subscribe to the brahmins way of life. There have been instances of exclusion where people have been denied a fair opportunity, not even shortlisted for the interview because of a non-brahmin name.

Those 2 brahmins charged in the Cisco case were in a powerful position to make decisions on whom to provide the opportunity. More important point is, many of these articles in mainstream media fail to point out the systemic support they have, especially from the fellow brahmins and other intermediate castes who remain silent or blind to all the subtle caste practices and discrimination in the workplace.

As seen in case details both brahmins are Islamaphobic too, of course, no doubt about their views about African Americans, a manifestation of superior Aryan race purity belief and hatred for the dark color skin. When you consider all their casteism, Islamaphobic, misogyny, inherent anti-blackness many fail to see the real impact in terms of denial of opportunities for ‘others’. 

The ‘others’ according to brahmins, are not just ‘lower’ castes, Muslims and African Americans, it includes all those so-called dominant/intermediate castes (non-brahmin meat-eating ‘Hindus’), who aren’t even discussed in these articles.

Of course, in many cases, they are(I don’t hesitate to use) ‘silent enablers’ of these brahmins too, maybe due to the volatility of their immigration status in the US. It’s not sure whether those intermediate castes recognize that they are also affected by the brahmin’s domination in all these Tech companies. Not only the Tech, academia is also full of brahmins who have been able to use the caste network and usurped many opportunities in all US universities. Here is a tweet from a historian who calls out their domination here in US universities.

In Ambedkar King Study Circle’s discussion with Dr. Kancha Ilaiah said that the intermediate castes(OBC’s/shudras) in the US had to speak up and support Dalits, Muslims and African Americans as an ally. Currently, many of these intermediate castes remain as neutral/silent or embraced the Brahmanical ways of promoting their caste pride. The proof for the intermediate caste pride is there are caste names like Gounder, Nair, Mudaliyar, etc. on the car name (license) plates here in the Bay Area along with business names. And there are many brahmin and non-brahmin caste-based organisations currently operating here in the US, in the name of ‘protecting’ Hindu culture.

This is not only going to promote casteism, it’s going to backfire really bad when the next generation of kids get to experience the denial of opportunities due to their caste. It’s not very far, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS, a subsidiary of RSS, a militant Hindu organization headed by brahmins), is running many Sanskrit schools here, promoting the ‘brahmin way of life’, in some places these groups are doing pooja (literal worshipping) to teachers, basically promoting the brahmanism among whites.

Screenshot of a comment on this Washington Post article by Thenmozhi Soundararajan

The dominant/intermediate castes (shudras) have to develop the ‘consciousness of kind’ as Dr. Ambedkar says it is critical to feel as one community, the fraternity. Dr. Kancha Ilaiah suggested that we had to embrace these folks by developing the counter culture, which is not that easy for the first-generation immigrants from the oppressed communities here without any social capital, and being anti-brahmanical itself is a huge risk as an individual and to their families.

Now all these articles are mostly explaining the discrimination only, instead of pointing out the system, a product of casteism, is further going to alienate those silent intermediate castes and force them to align with the brahmins in the name of attack against Hinduism. This is a clever strategy by the brahmins here, most of the journalists who are covering this Cisco case are also brahmins. We have to counter those journalists and make them explain the exclusionary model, an endogamous system, the brahmins are able to build here with the help of whites, as they play a significant role enabling whites to keep the African Americans away and serve as an example for normalizing their racism, inclusive model and promoting this ‘model minority’ myth.  

It’s very crucial to educate the progressives here about the endogamous system brahmins build here. Unless that happens, with the deep pockets of Tech Industry money and with their social capital they can mobilize as they did for the CA Textbook issue. The Americans including both whites and other minorities never going to understand the threat of brahmins as power-hungry monsters here in the US who can create worse segregation and othering here in the US along with one of worst exclusionary models in the history of humankind.

References – 

https://twitter.com/tarikhistorias/status/1280947050348077056

Link to the screenshot of the comment in  Washington Post article https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/new-lawsuit-shines-light-caste-discrimination-us-around-world/#comments-wrapper?outputType=comment&commentId=78338098-6ab0-4d72-a734-efbe28e4bfd1

Link to another comment  Washington Post article explains the caste nepotism https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/new-lawsuit-shines-light-caste-discrimination-us-around-world/?outputType=comment&commentId=932243e2-8eda-4af2-80da-20dcc7cc0add

The author could be reached on Twitter at @thaiyaan