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Trapped in Silicon Valley’s Hidden Caste System

 2 years ago
source link: https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidden-caste-system/
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Trapped in Silicon Valley’s Hidden Caste System

Born in a cowshed in India, Siddhant now works for Meta in California. But he hides his background as a Dalit and fears he can never reveal his true self.
reflection of a man on water ripples
Indians from oppressed caste backgrounds are landing plum jobs in Silicon Valley.  But tech is no escape from the discrimination of their homeland. Photograph: Arsenii Vaselenko

Siddhant was 14 when he learned of the watch. His father, a low-wage worker on the Indian railway, was trying to save up for it, tucking away a few rupees when he could. Made of steel, the watch had in its dial a sketch of a portly man, his face framed by round glasses and his broad shoulders clad in a wide-lapelled jacket. It was his father’s hero, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the man most responsible for weakening the caste system’s grip on Indian society.

After school, Siddhant liked to ride his bike down the crowded streets of Nagpur, India, past groups of kids playing cricket, to a squat concrete building where his father rented a modest office with his friends, all anti-caste activists. Inside, he’d find the men sitting in plastic chairs, swapping tales of their exploits with Ambedkar, surrounded by posters of the man and newspapers spilling off bookshelves. As he sat listening, Siddhant couldn’t help but notice as one friend and then another and a third appeared at the office with the watch strapped to their wrists.


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