Discrimination in Indian High Tech Companies

If you work as a programmer then you can’t deny the tremendous presence Indian engineers and companies have on the field. When i walk across the Yahoo campus i see South Asians all over the place. I think it’s wonderful. India (and the rest of South Asia) has a long history and many traditions which the west can learn from.

One thing which has always burdened India, held it back in many ways, is the caste system. Taking normal class divisions and making them more arcane and completed than anybody could think was possible. Some times the rulers of India have tried to break down the caste system, Gandhi and early congress, many of the Muslim mogul rulers, and Ashok a Buddhist king. Other times the leaders have build them up and used them to control the country, the British Raj and many, but not all, Hindu rulers. The British setup a system where by the maintained and reinforced the caste system placing white Europeans on top, above the bramhins.

Since independence it’s been India’s official government policy to abolish the caste system. There’s has been considerable affirmative action in everything from low level government jobs to university entrance exams and even political offices which are reserved for lower castes. All of which has helped.

Now there are Dalits (untouchables), Muslims (often who at some time, many generations ago converted to islam to escape being a lower caste), and women (who are discriminated against at all castes) who are graduating from the top Indian universities. In a fair system driven by merit, these people should be getting jobs at top firms.

A new study just out confirmed that they aren’t getting interviews or being hired. They used techniques from studying discrimination in the US. Where the same resume and experience are used with different names. They found that Dalits only get 2/3rds of the interviews that a high caste person would get with the SAME resume. Muslims did worse, only getting 1/3rd of the interviews. They didn’t try, but i’m sure that if you submitted the same resume with an English or European name they’d get even more interviews.

Regrettably this is totally in line with my experience in India. Even once they are hired, lower caste people face discrimination. Within the work place many upper caste managers try and enforce a hierarchy which is often incompatible with creative and collaborative work. Often westerns working with Indian teams in India are told that they are not respecting Indian ways of doing things. Sometimes it’s with good reason. There are real cultural differences and way’s of working. But in my experience, it’s often a ruse for defending a corrupt system based on caste and not merit.

Western companies and people working with Indian engineers miss out on the best Indian hackers because are least likely to be able to succeed within the Indian corporate organization. The two sharpest Indian hackers I’ve worked with, and hired in to a company i was working at, both were driven out of the company by this very issue. I wish western companies did more to demand that the best engineers get hired instead of the engineers from the ‘best’ families.

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Published:
December 16th 05:36 PM
Updated:
December 16th 06:36 PM
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