The tech giant Google has finally replied to US based Dalit activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan whose talk on caste bias had been cancelled in April after some of their employees revolted against the company calling her a Hindu phobic and anti-Hindu.

The caste discrimination has no place in its workplace. The company also have a very clear, publicly shared policy against retaliation and discrimination in workplace, a Google spokesperson said.

The Washington post had revealed the news that the Dalit activist talk had been cancelled due to its employees continuous mails to cancel her talk. The journal has also exposed that the groups of Google’s employees sent out mass emails through the company intranet to cancel the talk on cast bias.

Read Also: Layer’r Shot Body Spray ad faces backlash for promoting rape culture, DCW chief Swati Maliwal demands FIR

Thenmozhi had then written to Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying that she was troubled by this development and that her talk will only help Google’s employees understand the issue better.

In her letter to Pichai, Thenmozhi said they are both Tamil — while he is from a Brahmin family, she is from Dalit family. Even a consultant like her is facing casteist smears in the company that he leads. Imagine what a caste-oppressed worker at Google would face if they dared to come forward, she wrote.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit rights activist based in the United States of America (USA) and the founder and executive director of Equality Labs, a nonprofit that advocates for Dalits, was scheduled for a talk to Google News employees on the occasion of the Dalit History Month.

Read Also: Targeted killings in Kashmir: Centre blames Pakistan, Owaisi says Centre repeating mistakes from 1989

The issue also snowballed after Tanuja Gupta, the senior manager at Google who had invited Thenmozhi to deliver the talk, quit Google in protest after being pulled up for inviting her.

In her goodbye email, Gupta questioned whether Google wanted its diversity efforts to succeed. Retaliation is a normalized Google practice to handle internal criticism and women take the hit, she wrote.

In a statement, Thenmozhi said she cannot find the words to express just how traumatic and discriminatory Google’s actions were towards its employees and herself, as the company unlawfully cancelled a talk about caste equity. Caste discrimination, even unrecognized, is bad for business and it creates unsafe and hostile workplaces, she said.

This engagement will not only support Google staff and many global reporters in better understanding and covering this structural South Asian issue, but also allow Google to better support caste-oppressed journalists in a meaningful way, especially at a time when they face so much violence for covering this issue, she said.

Thenmozhi, who was formerly the president of Ambedkarites Association of North America (AANA), which has chapters across the US, Mexico and Canada, is a globally recognised anti-caste campaigner, and has been behind efforts to bring international attention to this South Asian system of social segregation.

Kanpur violence: 36 arrested, 1,000 named in 3 FIRs, conspirator’s property to be bulldozed

Hyderabad gang-rape: One more arrested, 3 out of 5 accused minor

The post Google cancels Dalit activist talk on caste bias after pressure from employees, Google replies appeared first on APN News.