Accused of caste bias, ex-Cisco engineer Sundar Iyer wants to ‘fix’ what CRD did — ‘let down Dalits’

Accused of caste bias, ex-Cisco engineer Sundar Iyer wants to ‘fix’ what CRD did — ‘let down Dalits’

New Delhi: “My job is to make CRD’s fraudulent actions in the Cisco case a moment of change for America,” says former Cisco employee Sundar Iyer, who was accused of discriminating against his Dalit IIT batchmate in 2020 by California’s Civil Rights Department.

CRD had filed a lawsuit against Cisco and its two engineers — Iyer and Ramana Kompella — alleging caste-based discrimination and harassment of John Doe (anonymous plaintiff) based on his Dalit identity. Three years after the case, CRD dropped the lawsuit against the engineers. However, the case against Silicon Valley tech giant Cisco continues at Santa Clara Superior County Court in the US.

Iyer has now come out with his side of the story in an interview with ThePrint. “Though the case against me has been dropped, I feel a moral obligation to defend the company,” said the 47-year-old engineer who now works as an angel investor and advisor after leaving Cisco in 2018.

The case

In July 2020, the state agency filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging John Doe (a pseudo name for the Dalit employee to protect his identity) was given unequal pay, offered fewer professional opportunities, and faced harassment. CRD used a section of the US Civil Rights Act to file the case.

The case soon took center stage in the anti-caste-based discrimination movement across US universities and corporations. The allegations were widely discussed on social media, while the identity politics among Indian American Hindus was fuelled. More significantly, it became a rallying point for a demand to recognize caste-based discrimination in the US.

In April 2023, the CRD voluntarily dropped the case against the engineers, but maintained that it would continue to fight the case against Cisco.

Iyer, the central figure in the case, accused CRD of lying and hiding evidence from the court, media, and activists. “I have objective data to prove that CRD has done several wrongful things in the Cisco caste case. The details are equivalent to the Watergate scandal,” he alleged.

‘Dalit employee never applied’

Iyer from IIT-Bombay’s 1994-98 batch started working with Cisco in 2014. He opened a start-up, ‘Candid-Network Assurance Engine’, there in September 2015.

Next month, he hired IIT batchmate John Doe to work with him as a principal engineer. Iyer claimed that he compensated Doe with millions of dollars for the job role.

Both Iyer and Doe had studied engineering in India and moved to the US in the 90s. However, according to Iyer, he had never worked with Doe before.

“I offered the job on merit. Every top leadership position (including the Head of Engineering position that Doe claimed he was denied) in my startup, first, to another senior candidate, who also self-identified as Dalit. Two of these top leadership positions were offered to the senior Dalit candidate, before John Doe made any complaints of caste discrimination,” he said.

“John Doe never applied for the post and in fact, he was among the interviewing team. We had put these facts before CRD but despite evidence such as emails and HR records, CRD accused me of caste discrimination.”

In the lawsuit, CRD had also accused Iyer and Kompella of salary discrimination and for not giving Doe a raise.

“If I wanted to discriminate against Doe based on his Dalit identity, why would I hire him in the first place? I gave away 100% of his CEO equity shares to all my employees including John Doe,” Iyer said.

‘CRD lied & misled’

Though the lawsuit was filed in 2020, CRD interviewed Iyer in June 2019.

According to Iyer, the CRD used repeated xenophobia and racial targeting of Hindu and Indian Americans. He also said that he was asked whether he was a religious person.

“I said that I have been irreligious. I have written short stories against caste in my blogs. But CRD assigned me a religion and a caste. They assigned Hindu Brahmin to me in the lawsuit. It violates my First Amendment rights,” he claimed.

Iyer said that there had been multiple complaints against Doe.

“Even seniors including the Dalit person complained against him. But CRD never interviewed any of the colleagues to corroborate the evidence,” he added.

He accused CRD of about 100 criminal acts from basic white lies, filing claims without a legal, logical, or factual basis, to gross negligence, and intentional negligence.

“CRD also claimed that Ramana Kompella harassed John Doe by asking him to submit a weekly statistics report. How can you harass someone by asking for a report? CRD also claimed that John Doe was a lone Dalit in my team, but it wasn’t the truth.”

After the case was dropped against them, Iyer is now on a mission to make CRD’s “fraudulent actions” a moment of change for America.

“I want to fix all that the CRD has done,” he said, alleging that the CRD has not just wronged him but also badly let down the Dalits and put them in a much more difficult situation.

(Edited by Tony Rai)