Thread by @BurntOutCase

Just managed to read this incredibly hard to believe article in the SF Chronicle (it was behind a paywall but I used the Wayback Machine archive) by @Shwanika

https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1461023315259125761

Dear Shwanika Narayan all I can say is that you really need to learn how to be a seasoned reporter and not just be so gullible that you repeat incredible claims without doing any legwork to verify them.

Your article quotes "J. Kaur" a UC Davis senior of Indian descent as making the absolutely 100% take it to the bank fabricated quote that students are seeking same-caste room-mates.

I went to undergrad in India 30 years ago and we had zero issues with rooming with anyone of any caste ... but sure 30 years later the kids of Indian American immigrants are choosing room-mates based on caste? Absolute BS!

@Shwanika did you make any effort whatsoever to talk to a broad spectrum of Indian American students at UC-Davis and ask them about their room-mate choices?

J. Kaur claims that insulting memes dropped into her group chats but you provide no examples or screenshots. Are you aware of the politically charged atmosphere in the Davis area between Khalistan supporting Sikhs and the rest of the Indian American community?

Earlier this year, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Davis Central Park was destroyed by cutting it off at the ankles and beheading the bronze statue. Many Khalistan supporting Sikhs had opposed the installation of the statue in the first place ...

... and when the desecration was discovered, several Sikh youth groups celebrated the destruction of the statue. The UC Davis student newspaper recently ran a propaganda piece asking that Diwali not be celebrated as it is a Hindu Supremacist festival.

So this is the political context between Hindus and other groups on this campus. On top of that add the usual trouble-maker anti-Hindu hate groups like Equality Labs that claim to be Dalit but are really merchants of hate and then the ever present Muslim Students Association ...

... that often has Pakistani or Bangladeshi students looking to make life difficult for Indian and particularly Hindu students. So it is important that you understand this context before you run sensational claims in the premier newspaper of record in California.

I can bet by bottom dollar that your source "J. Kaur" a UC Davis Senior is a Sikh student with pro-Khalistani leanings. Had her identity been disclosed it would be easy to verify her links to pro-Khalistani political factions.

Among the Sikh diaspora it is widely known that a certain caste has a pretty arrogant self-image and some are not hesitant to lapse into rural vulgarities. I can bet the casteist memes J. Kaur cites appearing on here group chats are Punjabi insults that are often casteist slurs.

Since you showed no interest or curiosity in learning more about this, unfortunately my guess will have to remain that. I rather doubt that second gen Hindu American kids are WhatsApping casteist memes to each other when ...

... as a first gen Hindu immigrant I am yet to receive any casteist meme from any other Indian in many years here. Same with the incredible claim about caste and room mates, which I have already questioned previously.

At least you identified J. Kaur somewhat, her room-mate doesn't even have an anonymized name but claims to have suffered "quiet pain and suffering" from caste discrimination yet not a single incident is narrated of this discrimination that she suffered.

It would seem to be terrible reporting by you and a mistake by your Editors to let her make such an incendiary claim without a single example. Do you have any explanation for this?

Finally your article does not accord Hindu Americans the only privilege I have seen granted in every story in mainstream media. You quote anti-Hindu hate groups like Equality Labs and Lefty Profs with their bogus theories on Indian society yet ...

... you do not talk to Hindu students broadly on campus to ascertain whether some of these fantastical claims are true (they are almost certainly false). Also when you allow a couple of anti-Hindu experts to weigh in with their bombastic quotes ...

... it is basic professional objectivity to let experts from the other side represent their point of view, yet you chose not to provide Hindu Americans with this basic courtesy.

Finally regarding the claim by the Nepali part-time waiter and student you again fall short of what would be the minimum required from any professional reporter.

Mr. Prem Pariyar says that people asked him about his last name as a pretext to learn his caste affiliation. Yet even after learning his last name I have no idea what his caste is. Caste knowledge is very local ...

... how would any Indian know a Nepali's caste by their last name when they can't even be accurate about fellow Indians?

He claims to have been served in separate plates & utensils when people learned he was a Dalit. How would people know he is a Dalit unless he informed them himself? Assuming that he did so despite his wariness to such overtures, where exactly did this act of discrimination occur?

Was it in his restaurant job? If the owner was so worked up over a Dalit colleague wouldn't he just have been fired? Or is he claiming that he went to a restaurant and they served him in a separate plate? That doesn't even make any sense.

Or perhaps at Community functions he was served in a separate plate? How did he know it was a separate plate? At most community functions people just buy a boatload of cheap plastic utensils for ease of cleanup.

So I have a funny feeling about Mr. Prem Pariyar's claims as well. I don't question for a second the horrifying acts of discrimination he claims to have suffered in Nepal, but I do question his vague assertions of acts of caste based discrimination in the US.

Oh I see that at very end of the article you reveal that J. Kaur is a Dalit Sikh validating all that I surmised earlier. I swear to my Hindu Supremacist Casteist God that I had not made it that far into your article.

This is a joke of an article, you should reflect on your low professional standards.