A senior manager at Google, named Tanuja Gupta, resigned from the company on Wednesday, 1 June, after a Dalit rights activist was not allowed to give a presentation on caste following emails by employees calling her “anti-Hindu.”
In April this year, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the founder of Equality Labs, a Dalit civil rights organisation, was scheduled to give a lecture to employees of Google News during Dalit History Month.
However, several Google employees called Soundararajan “Hindu-phobic” and “anti-Hindu” in emails to company heads, The Washington Post reported, citing copies of documents posted on Google’s intranet and mailing lists that included thousands of employees, as well as interviews with Google employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation.
Soundararajan then appealed directly to Google’s Chief Operating Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai, who hails from an upper-caste Indian family, to allow her to give her presentation. However, she did not receive any response from him.
‘Most Institutions Wouldn’t Do What Google Did’: Soundararajan
The presentation was cancelled, which led some employees to say that Google was willfully ignoring caste bias.
Gupta, the senior
