Seattle, WA, has become the first municipality in the United states to ban discrimination based on caste, a social system in India that separates people based on birth or descent that largely determines their station in life.
America has been a magnet to people throughout the world for people who wish to escape their roots and, through a life of hard work, achieve financial independence. But India’s ancient caste system is alive – and even thriving – in America’s tech sector, according to recent law suits filed in US courts.
It’s a big concern in the US tech sector because so many people from India have received US Visas and are working as coders and engineers. In fact, Apple had to take the explicit step to ban the practice in their offices.
But how could this happen today in the US? And could it happening more than we think?
These are great questions to ask in an industry, where Indian workers on L, J and F Visas can work 80-100 hours weeks for little pay. In at least one case in California, workers were paid as little as $1.21 an hour.
Many say large IT outsourcing firms, and the “body shops” they hire to recruit workers, give tacit approval to caste discrimination, because it acts as a shadow system that promotes getting the maximum hours of work out of their employees.
Social media sites are littered with examples of abuse of Dalits, Indian workers who occupy the lowest caste, including at Infosys, a company who has received millions in grants from the state of Connecticut and other states.