In the US, Indian IT workers from Dalit caste still face discrimination
- Amid rising public outrage in India at the crimes committed against women from India’s lowest castes, Indian Dalits in the US are also facing discrimination
- Activists say casteist values not only continue to thrive among the Indian diaspora, they could even translate into anti-blackness in the US
In September, Japanese multinational tech company NTT Data said it was taking “appropriate action” against one of its Indian-born employees for sharing casteist slurs on Facebook.
“We are aware of recent unacceptable posts and are taking appropriate action,” the company said in a post on September 11. “NTT Data does not condone hate speech or bigotry of any kind.”
This was the second incident of caste-based discrimination that was exposed this year in the US technology sector – which has many employees of Indian origin.
On June 30, California regulators sued Cisco Systems, accusing it of discriminating against an Indian-American employee by allowing him to be bullied by managers who were of a higher caste than him, including stonewalling the victim’s career progress for over two years.