I won't disagree with you, but would rather give people some context who are reading your comment and have never lived in India.
Like everything else in India, even this phenomenon exists in extremes. There are cities like Bangalore/Delhi/Hyderabad (almost all Tier 1 cities) where the IT sector flourishes, the concept of caste is almost invisible; bear in mind this is coming from someone who is from those lower castes.
Then you have other places where it is still socially accepted. My parents home in one of northern states is one of them. Communities/small villages are clustered based on castes, people might be forbidden from entering certain places like temples. Caste based marriages are still the norm there. It's certainly improving, but it takes time like everything else. My father still lives there and occasionally tells me about how things are changing, for instance he recently told me about a Muslim family who have been living there for the past decade, something that might not have been possible even 20-30 years ago.
> There are cities like Bangalore/Delhi/Hyderabad (almost all Tier 1 cities) where the IT sector flourishes, the concept of caste is almost invisible; bear in mind this is coming from someone who is from those lower castes.
I haven't had the "caste conversation" with my Indian friends for a few years now, but last time I did, they all said marrying outside of their caste would never be accepted by their parents. Friends from Mumbai, Delhi and Pune all said the same. Have things really changed so much in the past 5-10 years?
Preferring marriage within the same cast has to do more with having partner from the same cultural/family norms and practices. You see, Indian society is quite old (thousands of years); there are lot of customs re ways of worship, deities, dresses, eating/etc. that have evolved over this period and people (mostly parents) prefer a match in that regard. Because mostly marriages are arranged by parents (though in cities at least, love marriage has also become a common place thing.)
And if you talk to Americans, many of their parents would not accept if they came out as gay. That doesn't mean human rights are not advancing in the US, it just means that the previous generations have a hard time letting go of their bigoted beliefs.
Whoah there, I didn't say there hasn't been progress; I was asking a question in relation to "the concept of caste is almost invisible", because several Indian friends from different cities have told me otherwise
Like everything else in India, even this phenomenon exists in extremes. There are cities like Bangalore/Delhi/Hyderabad (almost all Tier 1 cities) where the IT sector flourishes, the concept of caste is almost invisible; bear in mind this is coming from someone who is from those lower castes.
Then you have other places where it is still socially accepted. My parents home in one of northern states is one of them. Communities/small villages are clustered based on castes, people might be forbidden from entering certain places like temples. Caste based marriages are still the norm there. It's certainly improving, but it takes time like everything else. My father still lives there and occasionally tells me about how things are changing, for instance he recently told me about a Muslim family who have been living there for the past decade, something that might not have been possible even 20-30 years ago.