caste system in india today essay

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Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation

• 4. Attitudes about caste

Table of Contents

• The dimensions of Hindu nationalism in India
• India’s Muslims express pride in being Indian while identifying communal tensions, desiring segregation
• Muslims, Hindus diverge over legacy of Partition
• Religious conversion in India
• Religion very important across India’s religious groups
• Near-universal belief in God, but wide variation in how God is perceived
• Across India’s religious groups, widespread sharing of beliefs, practices, values
• Religious identity in India: Hindus divided on whether belief in God is required to be a Hindu, but most say eating beef is disqualifying
• Sikhs are proud to be Punjabi and Indian
• 1. Religious freedom, discrimination and communal relations
• 2. Diversity and pluralism
• 3. Religious segregation
• 5. Religious identity
• 6. Nationalism and politics
• 7. Religious practices
• 8. Religion, family and children
• 9. Religious clothing and personal appearance
• 10. Religion and food
• 11. Religious beliefs
• 12. Beliefs about God
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix A: Methodology
• Appendix B: Index of religious segregation

The caste system has existed in some form in India for at least 3,000 years . It is a social hierarchy passed down through families, and it can dictate the professions a person can work in as well as aspects of their social lives, including whom they can marry. While the caste system originally was for Hindus, nearly all Indians today identify with a caste, regardless of their religion.

The survey finds that three-in-ten Indians (30%) identify themselves as members of General Category castes, a broad grouping at the top of India’s caste system that includes numerous hierarchies and sub-hierarchies. The highest caste within the General Category is Brahmin, historically the priests and other religious leaders who also served as educators. Just 4% of Indians today identify as Brahmin.

Most Indians say they are outside this General Category group, describing themselves as members of Scheduled Castes (often known as Dalits, or historically by the pejorative term “untouchables”), Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes (including a small percentage who say they are part of Most Backward Classes).

Hindus mirror the general public in their caste composition. Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority of Buddhists say they are Dalits, while about three-quarters of Jains identify as members of General Category castes. Muslims and Sikhs – like Jains – are more likely than Hindus to belong to General Category castes. And about a quarter of Christians belong to Scheduled Tribes, a far larger share than among any other religious community.

Caste segregation remains prevalent in India. For example, a substantial share of Brahmins say they would not be willing to accept a person who belongs to a Scheduled Caste as a neighbor. But most Indians do not feel there is a lot of caste discrimination in the country, and two-thirds of those who identify with Scheduled Castes or Tribes say there is  not widespread discrimination against their respective groups. This feeling may reflect personal experience: 82% of Indians say they have not personally faced discrimination based on their caste in the year prior to taking the survey.

Still, Indians conduct their social lives largely within caste hierarchies. A majority of Indians say that their close friends are mostly members of their own caste, including roughly one-quarter (24%) who say all their close friends are from their caste. And most people say it is very important to stop both men and women in their community from marrying into other castes, although this view varies widely by region. For example, roughly eight-in-ten Indians in the Central region (82%) say it is very important to stop inter-caste marriages for men, compared with just 35% in the South who feel strongly about stopping such marriages.

India’s religious groups vary in their caste composition

Most Indians (68%) identify themselves as members of lower castes, including 34% who are members of either Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 35% who are members of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) or Most Backward Classes. Three-in-ten Indians identify themselves as belonging to General Category castes, including 4% who say they are Brahmin, traditionally the priestly caste. 12

Hindu caste distribution roughly mirrors that of the population overall, but other religions differ considerably. For example, a majority of Jains (76%) are members of General Category castes, while nearly nine-in-ten Buddhists (89%) are Dalits. Muslims disproportionately identify with non-Brahmin General Castes (46%) or Other/Most Backward Classes (43%).

Caste classification is in part based on economic hierarchy, which continues today to some extent. Highly educated Indians are more likely than those with less education to be in the General Category, while those with no education are most likely to identify as OBC.

But financial hardship isn’t strongly correlated with caste identification. Respondents who say they were unable to afford food, housing or medical care at some point in the last year are only slightly more likely than others to say they are Scheduled Caste/Tribe (37% vs. 31%), and slightly less likely to say they are from General Category castes (27% vs. 33%).

The Central region of India stands out from other regions for having significantly more Indians who are members of Other Backward Classes or Most Backward Classes (51%) and the fewest from the General Category (17%). Within the Central region, a majority of the population in the state of Uttar Pradesh (57%) identifies as belonging to Other or Most Backward Classes.

Indians in lower castes largely do not perceive widespread discrimination against their groups

When asked if there is or is not “a lot of discrimination” against Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in India, most people say there isn’t a lot of caste discrimination. Fewer than one-quarter of Indians say they see evidence of widespread discrimination against Scheduled Castes (20%), Scheduled Tribes (19%) or Other Backward Classes (16%).

Generally, people belonging to lower castes share the perception that there isn’t widespread caste discrimination in India. For instance, just 13% of those who identify with OBCs say there is a lot of discrimination against Backward Classes. Members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes are slightly more likely than members of other castes to say there is a lot of caste discrimination against their groups – but, still, only about a quarter take this position.

Christians are more likely than other religious groups to say there is a lot of discrimination against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India: About three-in-ten Christians say each group faces widespread discrimination, compared with about one-in-five or fewer among Hindus and other groups.

At least three-in-ten Indians in the Northeast and the South say there is a lot of discrimination against Scheduled Castes, although similar shares in the Northeast decline to answer these questions. Just 13% in the Central region say Scheduled Castes face widespread discrimination, and 7% say the same about OBCs.

Highly religious Indians – that is, those who say religion is very important in their lives – tend to see less evidence of discrimination against Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Meanwhile, those who have experienced recent financial hardship are more inclined to see widespread caste discrimination.

Most Indians do not have recent experience with caste discrimination

Not only do most Indians say that lower castes do not experience a lot of discrimination, but a strong majority (82%) say they have not personally felt caste discrimination in the past 12 months. While members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes are slightly more likely than members of other castes to say they have personally faced caste-based discrimination, fewer than one-in-five (17%) say they have experienced this in the last 12 months.

But caste-based discrimination is more commonly reported in some parts of the country. In the Northeast, for example, 38% of respondents who belong to Scheduled Castes say they have experienced discrimination because of their caste in the last 12 months, compared with 14% among members of Scheduled Castes in Eastern India.

Jains, the vast majority of whom are members of General Category castes, are less likely than other religious groups to say they have personally faced caste discrimination (3%). Meanwhile, Indians who indicate they have faced recent financial hardship are more likely than those who have not faced such hardship to report caste discrimination in the last year (20% vs. 10%).

Most Indians OK with Scheduled Caste neighbors

The vast majority of Indian adults say they would be willing to accept members of Scheduled Castes as neighbors. (This question was asked only of people who did not identify as members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes.)

Among those who received the question, large majorities of Christians (83%) and Sikhs (77%) say they would accept Dalit neighbors. But a substantial portion of Jains, most of whom identify as belonging to General Category castes, feel differently; about four-in-ten Jains (41%) say that they would not be willing to accept Dalits as neighbors. (Because more than nine-in-ten Buddhists say they are members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, not enough Buddhists were asked this question to allow for separate analysis of their answers.)

About three-in-ten Brahmins (29%) say they would not be willing to accept members of Scheduled Castes as neighbors.

In most regions, at least two-thirds of people express willingness to accept Scheduled Caste neighbors. The Northeast, however, stands out, with roughly equal shares saying they would (41%) or would not (39%) be willing to accept Dalits as neighbors, although this region also has the highest share of respondents – 20% – who gave an unclear answer or declined to answer the question.

Indians who live in urban areas (78%) are more likely than rural Indians (69%) to say they would be willing to accept Scheduled Caste neighbors. And Indians with more education also are more likely to accept Dalit neighbors. Fully 77% of those with a college degree say they would be fine with neighbors from Scheduled Castes, while 68% of Indians with no formal education say the same.

Politically, those who have a favorable opinion of the BJP are somewhat less likely than those who have an unfavorable opinion of India’s ruling party to say they would accept Dalits as neighbors, although there is widespread acceptance across both groups (71% vs. 77%).

Indians generally do not have many close friends in different castes

Indians may be comfortable living in the same neighborhoods as people of different castes, but they tend to make close friends within their own caste. About one-quarter (24%) of Indians say all their close friends belong to their caste, and 46% say most of their friends are from their caste.

About three-quarters of Muslims and Sikhs say that all or most of their friends share their caste (76% and 74%, respectively). Christians and Buddhists – who disproportionately belong to lower castes – tend to have somewhat more mixed friend circles. Nearly four-in-ten Buddhists (39%) and a third of Christians (34%) say “some,” “hardly any” or “none” of their close friends share their caste background.

Members of OBCs are also somewhat more likely than other castes to have a mixed friend circle. About one-third of OBCs (32%) say no more than “some” of their friends are members of their caste, compared with roughly one-quarter of all other castes who say this.

Women, Indian adults without a college education and those who say religion is very important in their lives are more likely to say that all their close friends are of the same caste as them. And, regionally, 45% of Indians in the Northeast say all their friends are part of their caste, while in the South, fewer than one-in-five (17%) say the same.

Large shares of Indians say men, women should be stopped from marrying outside of their caste

As another measure of caste segregation, the survey asked respondents whether it is very important, somewhat important, not too important or not at all important to stop men and women in their community from marrying into another caste. Generally, Indians feel it is equally important to stop both men and women from marrying outside of their caste. Strong majorities of Indians say it is at least “somewhat” important to stop men (79%) and women (80%) from marrying into another caste, including at least six-in-ten who say it is “very” important to stop this from happening regardless of gender (62% for men and 64% for women).

Majorities of all the major caste groups say it is very important to prevent inter-caste marriages. Differences by religion are starker. While majorities of Hindus (64%) and Muslims (74%) say it is very important to prevent women from marrying across caste lines, fewer than half of Christians and Buddhists take that position.

Among Indians overall, those who say religion is very important in their lives are significantly more likely to feel it is necessary to stop members of their community from marrying into different castes. Two-thirds of Indian adults who say religion is very important to them (68%) also say it is very important to stop women from marrying into another caste; by contrast, among those who say religion is less important in their lives, 39% express the same view.

Regionally, in the Central part of the country, at least eight-in-ten adults say it is very important to stop both men and women from marrying members of different castes. By contrast, fewer people in the South (just over one-third) say stopping inter-caste marriage is a high priority. And those who live in rural areas of India are significantly more likely than urban dwellers to say it is very important to stop these marriages.

Older Indians and those without a college degree are more likely to oppose inter-caste marriage. And respondents with a favorable view of the BJP also are much more likely than others to oppose such marriages. For example, among Hindus, 69% of those who have a favorable view of BJP say it is very important to stop women in their community from marrying across caste lines, compared with 54% among those who have an unfavorable view of the party.

CORRECTION (August 2021): A previous version of this chapter contained an incorrect figure. The share of Indians who identify themselves as members of lower castes is 68%, not 69%.

• All survey respondents, regardless of religion, were asked, “Are you from a General Category, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe or Other Backward Class?” By contrast, in the 2011 census of India, only Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists could be enumerated as members of Scheduled Castes, while Scheduled Tribes could include followers of all religions. General Category and Other Backward Classes were not measured in the census. A detailed analysis of differences between 2011 census data on caste and survey data can be found here . ↩

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The struggle to challenge India's caste system remains real, still

Beena Pallical's family didn't really talk about caste.

Growing up in the sprawling city of Pune in India's western state of Maharashtra, Ms Pallical was sent to a school run by Christian missionaries.

"My great-great grandfather converted to Christianity, probably to escape the caste system," she told the ABC's India Now .

It was only when she finished her education that she made a startling discovery.

"When I started working, I traced back my identity and I realised I was from the Dalit community, formerly called [the] Untouchables."

Trapped in a rigid social hierarchy

Despite being outlawed in 1950, India's caste system continues to dictate almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, trapping people into fixed social orders from which it's nearly impossible to escape.

"Everything you do, from who you choose your partner to be, to where you're working, to who your friends are, all is based on caste and we must not forget that," said Ms Pallical, who is director of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights .

Established more than 3,000 years ago, the caste system — which pre-dates Hindu religion — divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma (work) and dharma (duty).

Castes are ranked from highest to lowest, based on the different body parts of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation.

Brahmins are the holders of spirituality and are priests and teachers. Kshatriyas are the warriors and rulers. Vaishyas are the farmers and merchants. And Shudras are the labourers.

Below them are the Dalits, formerly known as "Untouchables", who are often outcast by India's society.

Dalit literally translates as "broken people".

They are tasked with manual scavenging, cleaning sewers, toilets and streets.

"We are doing the work that nobody else wants to do and this system is sanctioned by the Hindu religion," Ms Pallical said.

Caste discrimination is outlawed — but oppression persists

Independent India's new constitution in 1950 outlawed caste discrimination and announced quotas in government jobs and educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes.

India’s current President, RM Kovind, is Dalit and a previous president, KR Narayanan, elected in 1997, was Dalit. 

Social activist and lawyer BR Ambedkar (1891-1956), who authored India's new constitution and is the venerated leader of the Dalits, was also Dalit.

"BR Ambedkar is the Messiah for Dalit communities" Ms Pallical said.

"He's the one who gave us hope."

Despite affirmative action policies, the system continues to bestow privileges on dominant castes while sanctioning persecution and discrimination of oppressed castes.

India's National Crime Records Bureau recorded 50,291 crimes committed against Dalits in 2020, but the figure is likely to be much higher because many crimes go unreported, due to fear of reprisal or intimidation by police.

Coming out as Dalit

"I remember feeling a ton of anxiety every time somebody asked me what my caste was," Yashica Dutt, the author of Coming Out As Dalit, told India Now.

"I would tell the other girls at school that I was Brahmin, because Brahmin is the highest caste."

When she returned home from school, her mother would ask: "What did you learn in school? Did somebody ask about your caste?"

"When I came out as Dalit, I was at a safe distance from the Indian community as I was by then living in New York," Ms Dutt says.

"So, what I did was a really calculated and safe risk, as compared to somebody still living back in India."

Caste travels with the diaspora

There have been recent high-profile cases of caste discrimination among the diaspora.

In the US, Dalit rights campaigner Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder of Equality Labs, was scheduled to give a talk to Google News employees to commemorate Dalit History Month.

It was cancelled after she was accused of being "anti-Hindu".

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai comes from a dominant caste family in India.

Tech worker activist Tanuja Gupta and Soundararajan went ahead with their talk and posted it on YouTube.

It's time for change

"Once I came to know about my caste, I felt it was my duty to give back to my community, to my brothers and sisters," Ms Pallical said.

"There are a lot of things that need to change in this country, but the people who are implementing these laws continue to be from a dominant caste and don't think change is a priority."

That's where Ms Pallical says the struggle is, however, she and others will keep working to abolish the caste system and take India to equality.

ABC's India Now, hosted by Marc Fennell, is a rich and entertaining look at news, culture and politics from India and the subcontinent. The show airs on the ABC on Monday nights at 9:30pm AEST or you can watch it anytime on iview . 

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How India’s caste system limits diversity in science — in six charts

Data show how privileged groups still dominate many of the country’s elite research institutes.

By Ankur Paliwal

11 January 2023

Illustration by Polygon8

This article is part of a Nature series examining data on ethnic or racial diversity in science in different countries. See also: How UK science is failing Black researchers — in nine stark charts.

Samadhan is an outlier in his home village in western India. Last year, he became the first person from there to start a science PhD. Samadhan, a student in Maharashtra state, is an Adivasi or indigenous person — a member of one of the most marginalized and poorest communities in India.

For that reason, he doesn’t want to publicize his last name or institution, partly because he fears that doing so would bring his social status to the attention of a wider group of Indian scientists. “They’d know that I am from a lower category and will think that I have progressed because of [the] quota,” he says.

The quota Samadhan refers to is also known as a reservation policy: a form of affirmative action that was written into India’s constitution in 1950. Reservation policies aimed to uplift marginalized communities by allocating quotas for them in public-sector jobs and in education. Mirroring India’s caste system of social hierarchy, the most privileged castes dominated white-collar professions, including roles in science and technology. After many years, the Indian government settled on a 7.5% quota for Adivasis (referred to as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ in official records) and a 15% quota for another marginalized group, the Dalits (referred to in government records as ‘Scheduled Castes’, and formerly known by the dehumanizing term ‘untouchables’). These quotas — which apply to almost all Indian research institutes — roughly correspond to these communities’ representation in the population, according to the most recent census of 2011.

But the historically privileged castes — the ‘General’ category in government records — still dominate many of India’s elite research institutions. Above the level of PhD students, the representation of Adivasis and Dalits falls off a cliff. Less than 1% of professors come from these communities at the top-ranked institutes among the 23 that together are known as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), according to data provided to Nature under right-to-information requests (see ‘Diversity at top Indian institutions’; the figures are for 2020, the latest available at time of collection).

Diversity at top Indian institutions

Universities in India are failing to meet government quotas for marginalized communities in academia. The government provides detailed national figures for undergraduate and master’s students, but not for academic levels above those; Nature collated figures from right-to-information requests. These data show that the representation of marginalized castes and other groups falls at higher academic levels.

Nationwide figures

Top-ranked IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology)†

Assistant professor

Associate professor

PhD student

Career level

Undergrad (STEM)*

Government quota

(‘reservation’ policy)

Proportion of total (%)

*Science, technology, engineering and mathematics; government data 2019–20. †Data obtained from Nature information requests, 2020 (latest available at time of collection). PhD: IITs: Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai), Kanpur, Kharaghur. All other career levels: IITs: Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Kanpur, Kharagpur. ‡Other Backward Classes. The Indian government refers to ‘Other Backward Classes’ as educationally and socially marginalized groups that are not Scheduled Castes (Dalit) or Scheduled Tribes (Adivasi). §‘General’ is the government term for all groups that are not OBC, Dalit or Adivasi: that is, historically privileged castes.

Top-ranked IITs

(Indian Institutes of Technology)†

“This is deliberate” on the part of institutes that “don’t want us to succeed”, says Ramesh Chandra, a Dalit, who retired as a senior professor at the University of Delhi last June. Researchers blame institute heads for not following the reservation policies, and the government for letting them off the hook.

Diversity gaps are common in science in many countries but they take different forms in each nation. The situation in India highlights how its caste system limits scientific opportunities for certain groups in a nation striving to become a global research leader.

India’s government publishes summary student data, but its figures for academic levels beyond this don’t allow analyses of scientists by caste and academic position, and most universities do not publish these data. In the past few years, however, journalists, student groups and researchers have been gathering diversity data using public-information laws, and arguing for change. Nature has used some of these figures, and its own information requests, to examine the diversity picture. Together, these data show that there are major gaps in diversity in Indian science institutions.

Early barriers

The challenge starts in schools and feeds through to university admissions. Adivasis and Dalits are under-represented in undergraduate science courses but not arts courses, higher-education survey data show (see ‘Undergraduate students in India’).

Undergraduate students in India

At undergraduate level, Adivasis and Dalits are under-represented in science courses but not arts courses (2019–20 government data).

Engineering

That is not because arts courses are more popular, but because teachers and mentors specializing in science are rare in the rural high schools attended by these students, especially Adivasis, says Sonajharia Minz, a computer scientist and vice-chancellor of Sido Kanhu Murmu University in Dumka, eastern India. (Minz is the second Adivasi woman to hold a vice-chancellorship in India.)

Sonajharia Minz (front right), an Adivasi, computer scientist and vice-chancellor of Sido Kanhu Murmu University in Dumka, says better support systems are needed for marginalized groups. Credit: Balkishor Tudu (BK)

Samadhan says that when he started a life-science bachelor’s degree in 2009, students from privileged castes often called him and other students from marginalized communities “free off” — a slur referring to students on government aid.

Another marginalized group, termed ‘other backward classes’ or OBCs, makes up around 44% of science students and 30% of medical students at the undergraduate level. India’s national proportion of OBCs is not known, because the country’s census does not count them. But a government household survey from 2006 suggests they make up around 41% of the population. (Reservation policies require academic institutions to have 27% of admissions or recruitments from OBCs.)

In 2012, Samadhan progressed to a master’s degree at a high-ranking university in western India. Student diversity at master’s level is slightly lower than at the undergraduate level, data show (see ‘Master’s students in India’).

Master’s students in India

At master’s level, the under-representation of marginalized castes or groups in Indian universities worsens slightly, compared with undergraduates (2019–20 government data).

During his master’s, Samadhan often considered dropping out because he felt intimidated by the English-speaking culture and intense coursework that he wasn’t used to. This is a common experience among students from underprivileged communities, says Akash Gautam, a Dalit and an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Hyderabad. “Many of them are first learners in their families. They need more time and support from the universities, which they don’t get.”

Akash Gautam, a Dalit and an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Hyderabad. Credit: Asiqul Ali

At the PhD level, the proportion of marginalized communities dips further — particularly at elite institutions. Data for PhD courses in 2020 at five high-ranked IITs, collected by Nature , show an average of 10% representation for Dalits and 2% for Adivasis — slightly lower than the average for five mid-ranking IITs. India’s top-ranked university, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, fares badly too (see ‘PhD students in India’).

PhD students in India

Data from a dozen Indian universities and institutes, sourced through information requests, show under-representation of marginalized castes in PhD programmes.

Government quota (‘reservation’ policy)

Top−ranked IITs‡

Mid-ranked IITs §

Banaras Hindu

University ¶

*Groups that are not Dalit, Advasi or OBC. †’Other backward classes’. ‡Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai), Kanpur, Kharagpur. § Dhanbad, Patna, Guwahati, Ropar, and Goa. IIT Goa was created too recently to have an official ranking. || Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. ¶ Faculty of Science data shown. All data from Nature information requests, 2020 (latest available at time of collection), except for Patna, Goa and Guwahati from requests by the Egalitarians group.

“Let’s face it, a PhD is somewhat of an elite pursuit” requiring financial support from families, says an IIT Delhi assistant professor from a privileged caste, speaking on condition of anonymity. Students from marginalized castes also often lack the recommendation networks and interview training to get recruited to PhD programmes, the assistant professor says.

Even when they start a PhD, many still struggle to find a good mentor willing to take them on. It is “quite common” for privileged-caste professors not to supervise students from marginalized communities, says Kirpa Ram, who belongs to the OBC grouping and is an assistant professor of environmental sciences at the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi.

Kirpa Ram, who belongs to the OBC group, is an environmental scientist at the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. Credit: Kirpa Ram

An Adivasi PhD student from a science department at Delhi University, for instance, told Nature that in 2018, when she approached a privileged-caste professor to be her supervisor, he responded that she was a “quota candidate” and could find a supervisor anywhere.

Gautam and other scientists told Nature that sometimes privileged-caste professors don’t provide the extra mentoring that students from underprivileged backgrounds might need — leading some to quit before completing their PhDs. “It’s a tactic,” Gautam says.

Staffing fall

Very few doctoral students from marginalized castes reach staff positions in elite institutes (see ‘Faculty members in India’). At higher-tier IITs and the IISc, 98% of professors and more than 90% of assistant or associate professors are from privileged castes, Nature found. In the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), all professors are from the privileged castes, the data it provided to Nature suggest. TIFR belongs to a class of federally funded ‘Institutions of Excellence’ exempt from following reservation policies.

Faculty members in India

Data from 13 elite institutions in India show that a very low proportion of faculty members are from marginalized castes, especially at the assistant professor level and above.

Proportion of known ethnicities (%)

Top-ranked IITs‡

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Banaras Hindu University

(All departments)

Tata Institute of Fundamental

Research, Mumbai

*Groups that are not Dalit, Advasi or OBC. †’Other backward classes’. ‡Delhi, Bombay (Mumbai), Kanpur, Kharagpur. (IIT Madras didn’t provide faculty data). § Dhanbad, Patna, Guwahati, Varanasi, and Goa. IIT Goa was created too recently to have an official ranking. || Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. All data from Nature information requests, 2020 (latest available at time of collection), except for Patna, Goa and Guwahati from requests by the Egalitarians group.

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai

Banaras Hindu University (All departments)

Jawaharlal Nehru University,

Some premier institutes are doing a little better. At the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, a group of 38 labs, 18% of researchers (combining senior staff grades) were Dalits and 4% Adivasis, according to data Nature received from 31 of those labs.

Funding mismatch

Most of India’s research funders don’t disclose data on funding by caste, or don’t collect them in the first place. But the Department of Science and Technology (DST), one of India’s two main science-funding government agencies, did share data with Nature on postdoctoral researchers whom it had awarded INSPIRE Faculty Fellowships — positions aimed at supporting young talent, which represent an important but small part of the DST’s total funding. Between 2016 and 2020, 80% of recipients were from privileged castes, just 6% were Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and less than 1% Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis). The DST says the selection was “strictly based on merit”. Funding given by the DST’s Technology Development and Transfer Division showed a similar pattern (see ‘Diversity in India’s research funding’). In both cases, the DST didn’t share application success rates.

Diversity in India’s research funding

Data on two funding schemes, shared with Nature by India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) under information requests, suggest most money goes to researchers from privileged castes or groups.

INSPIRE faculty fellowship for postdoctoral research, 2016−20

DST Tech Development and Transfer Division grants 2016−20

In the past few years, groups of activists, students and researchers have been pushing institutions not only to follow quotas but also to better support researchers from underprivileged communities . “We are doing this to hold a mirror to these institutes to show how ugly they are,” says a spokesperson for Egalitarians , an organization that tries to collect and publish diversity data.

The issue is part of a wider recognition of how privileged-caste groups have been discriminating against marginalized communities — emboldened by India’s pro-Hindu prime minister Narendra Modi, say some academics who spoke to Nature but did not want their names on record.

Some minority religious groups in India, such as Muslims — who are present across a variety of social and caste divisions, including Dalits — also face structural inequities in society. According to the 2011 census, Muslims make up around 14% of the country’s population, but only 5.5% of those enrolled in higher education in 2019–20 were Muslims, survey data suggest.

Because no more detailed data were available, Nature asked IITs and other institutes for figures to do with Muslim representation. Most replied that they didn’t have the figures, but the sparse data that a few institutions shared suggest that Muslims are under-represented in elite academic institutes. In 2020, Muslims made up less than 5% of PhD students in IIT Madras in Chennai and less than 1% of science-teaching faculty in IIT Kharagpur; both are prestigious institutes. However, in IIT Dhanbad, a mid-ranking institute in a region where Muslims are not unusually numerous, 55% of PhD students were Muslims.

The rising criticism of under-representation and discrimination in academic institutions, particularly around caste, is prodding some institutes into action. India’s Ministry of Education, which didn’t respond to Nature ’s request for an interview, has several times since 2019 told federally funded institutes, including the IITs, to comply with reservation norms when recruiting teachers.

In 2019, Modi’s government expanded the reservation quotas by 10% to cover lower-income people not part of marginalized castes or groups, who would otherwise fall in the ‘General’ category; they would be categorized under ‘Economically Weaker Sections’ of society. The extension is controversial but, after legal challenges, was upheld in a November 2022 ruling by India’s Supreme Court.

Representatives at four IITs talked on record to Nature for this story; others didn’t respond. “Equating under-representation with discrimination is incorrect. There is no discrimination,” said Neela Nataraj, a mathematician and dean of faculty affairs at IIT Bombay in Mumbai. She accepted that the institute had a shortage of students and faculty members from some social categories, but said it was on a mission to improve representation through recruitment without compromising on quality, and through encouraging more students from under-represented communities to start PhDs. Angelie Multani, a professor of literature who was appointed in August 2022 as IIT Delhi’s first dean to increase diversity on campus, says the institute recognized that, like others, it had “under-representation of marginalized sections of society” and was working to improve the situation through measures such as hiring drives. And Amalendu Chandra, dean of faculty affairs at IIT Kanpur, says that the institute had offered appointments to 48 teachers from marginalized communities in the past year. (The institute has 413 faculty members, according to its website).

At IIT Goa, Amaldev Manuel, a computer scientist and chair of PhD admissions in 2022, noted that the institution’s acceptance rate for PhD applicants from marginalized communities was higher (at above 1%) than for the ‘general’ category (below 1%), even though it received fewer applications from people of less privileged castes.

Some researchers, such as Ramesh Chandra, doubt that diversity initiatives by institutions will make a big dent until India’s government takes action against institutes for violating reservation policies. “You have to take punitive action against the [institutes’] directors,” says Chandra. “Remove them.”

At the very least, says Ram, the government should require universities to publicly disclose diversity data and monitor compliance. And Minz thinks that for the situation to change, support systems need to be created at every step from school education to high-level recruitments in academia — such as training on grant-proposal-writing and communication skills for researchers recruited from marginalized communities. “The playing field is not equal at any stage,” she says.

For Samadhan, the marker of change would be more personal. “The day I would be able to say my full name without hesitation in an institute, I will feel that equality has arrived,” he says.

This article is also available as a pdf version .

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Caste in India: What are Dalits and how prevalent is casteism in modern-day society?

Gang-rape and murder of dalit woman in uttar pradesh highlights enduring caste divisions in indian society, article bookmarked.

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The brutal gang-rape and death of a woman from India ’s Dalit community, formerly known as the untouchables, has again put a spotlight on the country’s rigid system of Hindu hierarchy.

The attack on the 19-year-old in the most populous Uttar Pradesh state has sparked protests and led to criticism of both the state’s leader Yogi Adityanath and prime minister Narendra Modi, both of the ruling Hindu nationalist party.

One women's group said that under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Uttar Pradesh had become “the rape state of India”. The comments from the All India Democratic Women's Association come as government statistics rank Uttar Pradesh as the most unsafe state for women in the country.

But the attack has also led to an outcry from groups representing the Dalit community. Hundreds of protesters from the Bhim Army party, which advocates for the minority group’s rights, descended on the hospital where the young woman died on Tuesday.

What is caste in India?

The history of the caste system is still hotly debated, but scholars generally agree that it dates back at least 3,000 years and was used to divide Hindus into hierarchical groups.

While its rigidity may have shifted over the centuries, the system has long been used to entrench the privilege of members of the so-called upper castes while condemning those of lower castes to specific, less desirable roles or occupations.

Historians say the system persisted unchanged for centuries until it was actually reinforced by British colonial rulers as a way of simplifying censuses of the Indian population and making it easier to govern.

• ‘Nobody has anything for people like me’: Coronavirus has brought caste discrimination back to India

The constitution of independent India banned caste-based discrimination in 1950, and successive governments have implemented policies to encourage greater social mobility for lower castes. But all across India, particularly outside the big cities, the system persists to varying degrees.

What are the different castes?

Most definitions of the modern-day caste system describe it as dividing Hindus into four main umbrella categories, with upper-caste Brahmins at the top.

In descending order, the other categories are Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (farmers and merchants) and Shudras (labourers). These definitions are derived from Hindu scriptures, in particular the Manusmriti.

Within those categories there are thought to be around 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes, often ascribed to a single occupation. In rural India, people of the same caste are often identifiable by a shared surname.

In his 2019 book The Truth About Us, Sanjoy Chakravorty argues that this structure of caste was largely forged by British colonial rulers in the 18th and 19th centuries as a way of simplifying it for censuses of the Indian population, which were then used to make the country easier to govern.

He suggests that before then, caste was much less important across India than other forms of social division.

Who are Dalits ?

Dalits are a minority numbering some 200 million who historically existed as outcasts from the Hindu hierarchical system, tending to do menial labour. They were formerly known as Achhoots or Untouchables.

They represent a repressed community in many ways and still face prejudice and other obstacles to social mobility, though some Dalit leaders have risen to occupy the highest offices in the land.

How prevalent is the caste system in India today?

The caste system is less obvious today in urban India, where different sections of society live in close proximity and inter-caste marriage is more common.

But in rural idea, people of the same caste often still live together in clearly defined communities and news stories of neighbourly conflict can often be understood as clashes between members of different castes.

The caste system is talked about most openly when it comes to elections - voting blocs are often talked about in the context of their caste, with a general expectation that members of the same caste will all, more or less, vote the same way.

Efforts are being made to confront the uncomfortable truth about this social structure, with the Ayushmann Khurrana-starring 2019 movie Article 15 seen as the first Bollywood blockbuster to tackle the issue of caste-based atrocities head-on.

And in southern India, it is commonplace to find people identifying themselves by only a single name in a rejection of the caste associations that so often come with surnames.

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With Stories of Her Oppressed Community, a Journalist Takes Aim at the Walls of Caste

Meena Kotwal started a news outlet focused on Dalit and other marginalized groups in India, hoping that telling their stories would help improve their lives.

By Karan Deep Singh

Karan Deep Singh reported this story from New Delhi and Bihar, India.

The injustices were all too common. In one part of India, a vendor’s stall was broken up , depriving him of his livelihood. In another, members of a poor family were denied government benefits, forcing them to beg for survival . They were all Dalits, once deemed untouchable by India’s hierarchical caste system.

Such episodes have gone largely unnoted and unaddressed for decades. But both cases were picked up by an online news outlet that was started two years ago with the mission of covering marginalized groups in India. Afterward, officials began taking action.

“That’s the impact of giving voice to the voiceless,” said Meena Kotwal, the outlet’s founder.

Even as members of marginalized groups have risen to become presidents of India (a largely ceremonial post), the country’s close to 300 million Dalits still face widespread mistreatment and violence . Despite decades of constitutionally enshrined protections and affirmative action, every year thousands are subjected to crimes , including rape , torture , acid attacks and murder.

To tell these stories and right these wrongs, Ms. Kotwal, a Dalit herself, started The Mooknayak — or “the leader of the voiceless.” It is named after a biweekly newspaper founded more than a century ago by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar , whom scholars have sometimes compared to Martin Luther King Jr. He helped draft the nation’s Constitution, which enshrined a formal ban on caste discrimination.

Dalits, who account for about 20 percent of India’s population, in many cases remain stuck at the lowest rungs of society. Although India has made large strides in helping the poor, almost a third of the Dalit community, or some 100 million people, still live in poverty, according to the United Nations .

The Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has courted and increasingly drawn a bigger share of the Dalit vote. But it has done little to persuade the religious ideologues among its support base to let go of a centuries-old Hindu social order that relegated Dalits to the most undesirable tasks like cleaning toilets, skinning animals and disposing of dead bodies.

Ms. Kotwal had no business plan for The Mooknayak, but she knew there were millions who desperately needed their stories told. She hired Dalits, Indigenous people and women as reporters, editors and video journalists. Publishing articles and videos in Hindi and English, they aspire to cover everything from individual injustices to policy debates.

“I want the marginalized community to be able to say, ‘We have our own media, we report on all kinds of stories and we raise issues that haven’t been raised until today,’” said Ms. Kotwal, 33.

The Mooknayak’s audience has grown steadily and now draws nearly 50,000 unique visitors a month to its website. It runs on crowdfunding — readers have donated phones, small amounts of money, even a motorbike — and grants. The Mooknayak has received more than $12,000 from Google and roughly $6,000 as part of a training program led by YouTube, which helped fund salaries for a team of 11, as well as to pay for a teleprompter and office furniture.

Its growing influence allowed Ms. Kotwal to nab an interview with  Rahul Gandhi , scion of a once-mighty political dynasty who is seeking to challenge Mr. Modi in next year’s election. Her rising public profile, though, has also brought her multiple rape and death threats .

Even making it this far as a Dalit woman is a victory in India’s caste-ridden society. Born to manual laborers, Ms. Kotwal grew up in a Dalit neighborhood in New Delhi. Before leaving for school each morning, she stuffed her notebooks in a jute sack, which she also used as a seat on the ground. Her family’s meager earnings meant that as a 16-year-old she needed to work to pay for both her education and her personal needs.

Soon she was pursuing a degree in journalism, a path where she had few role models from her community, which still faces rampant employment discrimination.

But her persistence paid off in 2017, when Ms. Kotwal strode across the Italian marble floor of a tower in New Delhi and started work as a broadcast journalist for the BBC’s Hindi-language service. The job and its trappings left her and her family in awe. “Do you sit in a swivel chair? Are you served tea at your seat?” her mother, an illiterate laborer, asked.

The honeymoon did not last long. A dominant-caste colleague nudged Ms. Kotwal to reveal her own caste, she said, and then outed her to colleagues. It was the beginning of what she described as public humiliation and discrimination at work.

Her bosses brushed off her concerns. One used a refrain often heard from people of dominant castes, telling her that Dalits no longer existed in modern India, according to messages viewed by The Times — denying not just her complaint, but her community’s very existence.

After two years on the job, she filed an official complaint with BBC officials in London. The company reviewed her claims of discrimination, according to an internal document, but ruled that her grievances were without “merit or substance.” Her contract, due to end soon, was not renewed.

The BBC said it does not discuss individual personnel matters and fully complies with Indian law. A London-based spokeswoman added, “We know there is always more to do in a global organization, but we are making significant progress in terms of the diversity of the people who work with us.”

The representation of Dalits and other marginalized peoples remains an issue across nearly every profession in India. That is especially true in the country’s media industry, which is dominated by privileged castes who tend to hire people from similar backgrounds.  Surveys show almost 90 percent of the country’s top news media figures belong to dominant Hindu castes.

The “almost complete absence” of Dalit journalists, writers and television personalities in the Indian media, said Harish Wankhede, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi who studies caste in media, creates “a black hole of gatekeeping” in which articles highlighting crimes against Dalits are routinely buried.

The New York Times interviewed more than a dozen journalists belonging to historically marginalized communities, including Ms. Kotwal, who said they had experienced discrimination from colleagues. Several other journalists corroborated their accounts.

Dalit journalists at India’s mainstream newspapers and television stations said that though they felt obliged to hide their caste identities at work, they were sometimes asked about it during job interviews. Some said they had experienced forms of discrimination and shunning — one, for instance, said dominant-caste co-workers refused to eat food he had touched.

“It’s like carrying this shameful, dirty secret, you know, and you know they’ll never accept you,” said Yashica Dutt, the author of “Coming Out as Dalit,” who kept her Dalit identity hidden for 10 years as a journalist in India before moving to New York.

On a chilly January afternoon, Ms. Kotwal unrolled the shutters to her new office in New Delhi. She flicked a single switch and walked past chairs still covered in plastic to a room with a large wooden desk.

“Welcome to our newsroom,” said Ms. Kotwal, who envisions her platform as a means to bring social change. “I want someone in a village to get drinking water, or help get their F.I.R. registered,” she said, referring to the first information report, the vital but often-daunting step of lodging a formal police complaint in India.

Soon after losing the BBC job, Ms. Kotwal gave birth to her daughter, Dharaa, now a demanding toddler who travels with her on reporting trips and scooter rides to her office. Ms. Kotwal called her daughter her biggest inspiration for her work.

“I keep thinking, ‘What will happen to her as a Dalit woman one day?’ She would ask me, ‘What did you do, Mummy?’”

Karan Deep Singh is a reporter and visual journalist based in New Delhi, India. He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal, where he was part of a team that was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting and nominated for a national Emmy Award. More about Karan Deep Singh

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Origin and Impact of the Indian Caste System

Quick note from Caroline: this is a great big-picture overview of the history of caste in India. I want to point out that the word “Aryan” as used here is not what the Nazis meant. The Nazis borrowed  a lot  of their language and symbols about race superiority from 19th-century pseudoscience about White northern Europeans moving across Eurasia and founding all the great civilizations. This is nonsense. The origin of the term Aryan in ancient Hindu texts (ca. 1500-500BCE) is uncertain, but in this context, it refers to the people who dominated what is now northern India and Pakistan. Ethnic, cultural, and linguistic differences are also tied to caste in India historically and today…but not Nazis. Now, back to Xixiang’s summary.

The caste system (tied to Hinduism) has a long history and there has long been contentious in the origin of this system. In recent years, the most accepted explanation of the origin is related to the Aryans since many pieces of research support this hypothesis. For example, Dr. Sharma’s team proved that there exists a strong relationship between the status in the caste system and a special chromosome which is the trait of the Aryans (Sharma, et al. 50).

Following the hypothesis related to the Aryans, around 1500 BC, the Aryans arrived at the Indian subcontinent and they conquered the local Indian tribes with their advanced technology (Deshpande, 19). To classify their ruler’s status from those local people, the class division between the conqueror and the conquered has been created. That is the prototype of the caste system. Later, as the interaction between the Aryan conquerors and the indigenous people, the social hierarchy has developed from two to four. The Aryans were divided into three levels internally: the Hindu priestly aristocracy – Brahmins; the military chiefs – Kshatriyas; and the free civilians engaged in various productive labor – Vaishyas. On the other hand, most local people are classified into the lowest level, which is Shudras who need to subordinate to Vaishyas, Kshatriyas, and Brahmins. Besides, some of the local people have been excluded from this system, and they are called Dalits or Untouchables who are in the lowest social status and being most discriminated against (Deshpande, 22). The graph below is a general presentation of the caste system hierarchy.

The Caste System Explained

To secure their status, the Aryans dominator set up several restrictions. The most essential one is that your caste is only determined by your parents. Also, the marriage across the caste is prohibited. Besides, people from low status are prohibited to pursue a high-level career (Mason, 648). For example, if you are born as a Shudras or Dalits, you can only do some dirty physical work since decent jobs are reserved for Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas. Combining those restrictions, we can find that there doesn’t exist any chance for the people from Shudras and Dalits to gain a better life in such social hierarchy.

Nowadays, with the help of the Indian government, the effect of the caste system has already been much less than before. In the rural area, movement out of caste specializing occupations and access to resources is still difficult, but in urban areas, people can pursue their desired job without considering their caste (Deshpande, 31). As time goes by, I believe that the impact of caste would keep decreasing, and Indian society would become more equal.

Deshpande, Manali S. “History of the Indian Caste System and Its Impact on India Today.” DigitalCommons@CalPoly, Dec. 2010, digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/socssp/44/.

Joe, and Thomas DeMichele. “The Caste System Explained.” Fact/Myth, 27 Nov. 2018, factmyth.com/the-caste-system-explained/.

Mason Olcott. “The Caste System of India.”  American Sociological Review , vol. 9, no. 6, 1944, pp. 648–657.  JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/2085128. Accessed 16 Mar. 2020 .

Sharma, S., Rai, E., Sharma, P.  et al.  The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1 *  substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system.  J Hum Genet  54 ,  47–55 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhg.2008.2

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Caste System in India – Origin, Features, and Problems

Last updated on September 21, 2023 by ClearIAS Team

Table of Contents

Jana → Jati → Caste

The word caste derives from the Spanish and Portuguese “casta”, means “race, lineage, or breed”. Portuguese employed casta in the modern sense when they applied it to hereditary Indian social groups called as ‘jati’ in India.  ‘Jati’ originates from the root word ‘Jana’ which implies taking birth. Thus, caste is concerned with birth.

According to Anderson and Parker, “Caste is that extreme form of social class organization in which the position of individuals in the status hierarchy is determined by descent and birth .”

How did Caste System originate in India: Various Theories

There are many theories like traditional, racial, political, occupational, evolutionary etc which try to explain the caste system in India.

1.Traditional Theory

According to this theory, the caste system is of divine origin. It says the caste system is an extension of the varna system, where the 4 varnas originated from the body of Bramha.

At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and came from Brahma’s head. Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, came from his arms. Vaishyas, or the traders, were created from his thighs. At the bottom were the Shudras, who came from Brahma’s feet. The mouth signifies its use for preaching, learning etc, the arms – protections, thighs – to cultivate or business, feet – helps the whole body, so the duty of the Shudras is to serve all the others. The sub-castes emerged later due to intermarriages between the 4 varnas.

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The proponents of this theory cite Purushasukta of Rigveda, Manusmriti etc to support their stand.

2. Racial Theory

The Sanskrit word for caste is varna which means colour. The caste stratification of the Indian society had its origin in the chaturvarna system – Brahmins, Kashtriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Indian sociologist D.N. Majumdar writes in his book, “ Races and Culture in India ”, the caste system took its birth after the arrival of Aryans in India.

Rig Vedic literature stresses very significantly the differences between the Arya and non-Aryans (Dasa), not only in their complexion but also in their speech, religious practices, and physical features.

The Varna system prevalent during the Vedic period was mainly based on division of labour and occupation. The three classes, Brahma, Kshatra and Vis are frequently mentioned in the Rig Veda. Brahma and Kshatra represented the poet-priest and the warrior-chief. Vis comprised all the common people. The name of the fourth class, the ‘Sudra’, occurs only once in the Rig Veda. The Sudra class represented domestic servants.

3. Political Theory

According to this theory, the caste system is a clever device invented by the Brahmins in order to place themselves on the highest ladder of social hierarchy.

Dr. Ghurye states, “Caste is a Brahminic child of Indo-Aryan culture cradled in the land of the Ganges and then transferred to other parts of India.”

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The Brahmins even added the concept of spiritual merit of the king, through the priest or purohit in order to get the support of the ruler of the land.

4. Occupational Theory

Caste hierarchy is according to the occupation. Those professions which were regarded as better and respectable made the persons who performed them superior to those who were engaged in dirty professions.

According to Newfield, “Function and function alone is responsible for the origin of caste structure in India.” With functional differentiation there came in occupational differentiation and numerous sub-castes such as Lohar(blacksmith), Chamar(tanner), Teli(oil-pressers).

5. Evolution Theory

According to this theory, the caste system did not come into existence all of a sudden or at a particular date. It is the result of a long process of social evolution.

• Hereditary occupations;
• The desire of the Brahmins to keep themselves pure;
• The lack of rigid unitary control of the state;
• The unwillingness of rulers to enforce a uniform standard of law and custom
• The ‘Karma’ and ‘Dharma’ doctrines also explain the origin of caste system. Whereas the Karma doctrine holds the view that a man is born in a particular caste because of the result of his action in the previous incarnation, the doctrine of Dharma explains that a man who accepts the caste system and the principles of the caste to which he belongs, is living according to Dharma. Confirmation to one’s own dharma also remits on one’s birth in the rich high caste and violation gives a birth in a lower and poor caste.
• Ideas of exclusive family, ancestor worship, and the sacramental meal;
• Clash of antagonistic cultures particularly of the patriarchal and the matriarchal systems;
• Clash of races, colour prejudices and conquest;
• Deliberate economic and administrative policies followed by various conquerors
• Geographical isolation of the Indian peninsula;
• Foreign invasions;
• Rural social structure.

Note: It is from the post-Vedic period, the old distinction of Arya and Sudra appears as Dvija and Sudra, The first three classes are called Dvija (twice-born) because they have to go through the initiation ceremony which is symbolic of rebirth. “The Sudra was called “ekajati” (once born).

Note: Caste system developed on rigid lines post Mauryan period , especially after the establishment of Sunga dynasty by Pushyamitra Sunga (184 BC). This dynasty was an ardent patron of ‘Brahminism’. Through Manusmriti, Brahmins once again succeeded in organizing the supremacy and imposed severe restrictions on the Sudras. Manusmriti mentioned that, ‘the Sudra, who insults a twice-born man, shall have his tongue cut out’.

Note: Chinese scholar Hieun Tsang, who visited India in 630 AD , writes that, “Brahminism dominated the country, caste ruled the social structure and the persons following unclean occupations like butchers, scavengers had to live outside the city”.

Principal features of caste system in India

• Segmental Division of Society: The society is divided into various small social groups called castes. Each of these castes is a well developed social group, the membership of which is determined by the consideration of birth.
• Hierarchy: According to Louis Dumont, castes teach us a fundamental social principle of hierarchy. At the top of this hierarchy is the Brahmin caste and at the bottom is the untouchable caste. In between are the intermediate castes, the relative positions of which are not always clear.
• Endogamy: Endogamy is the chief characteristic of caste, i.e. the members of a caste or sub-caste should marry within their own caste or sub-caste. The violation of the rule of endogamy would mean ostracism and loss of caste. However, hypergamy (the practice of women marrying someone who is wealthier or of higher caste or social status.) and hypogamy (marriage with a person of lower social status) were also prevalent. Gotra exogamy is also maintained in each caste. Every caste is subdivided into different small units on the basis of gotra. The members of one gotra are believed to be successors of a common ancestor-hence prohibition of marriage within the same gotra.
• Hereditary status and occupation: Megasthenes, the Greek traveller to India in 300 B. C., mentions hereditary occupation as one of the two features of caste system, the other being endogamy.
• Restriction on Food and Drink: Usually a caste would not accept cooked food from any other caste that stands lower than itself in the social scale, due to the notion of getting polluted. There were also variously associated taboos related to food. The cooking taboo, which defines the persons who may cook the food. The eating taboo which may lay down the ritual to be followed at meals. The commensal taboo which is concerned with the person with whom one may take food. Finally, the taboo which has to do with the nature of the vessel (whether made of earth, copper or brass) that one may use for drinking or cooking. For eg: In North India Brahmin would accept pakka food (cooked in ghee) only from some castes lower than his own. However, no individual would accept kachcha(cooked in water) food prepared by an inferior caste. Food prepared by Brahmin is acceptable to all, the reason for which domination of Brahmins in the hotel industry for a long time. The beef was not allowed by any castes, except harijans.
• A Particular Name: Every caste has a particular name though which we can identify it. Sometimes, an occupation is also associated with a particular caste.
•   The Concept of Purity and Pollution: The higher castes claimed to have ritual, spiritual and racial purity which they maintained by keeping the lower castes away through the notion of pollution. The idea of pollution means a touch of lower caste man would pollute or defile a man of higher caste. Even his shadow is considered enough to pollute a higher caste man.
• Jati Panchayat: The status of each caste is carefully protected, not only by caste laws but also by the conventions. These are openly enforced by the community through a governing body or board called Jati Panchayat. These Panchayats in different regions and castes are named in a particular fashion such as Kuldriya in Madhya Pradesh and Jokhila in South Rajasthan.

Varna vs Caste – The difference

Varna and caste are 2 different concepts, though some people wrongly consider it the same.

Functions of the caste system

• It continued the traditional social organization of India.
• It has accommodated multiple communities by ensuring each of them a monopoly of a specific means of livelihood.
• Provided social security and social recognition to individuals. It is the individual’s caste that canalizes his choice in marriage, plays the roles of the state-club, the orphanage and the benefits society. Besides, it also provides him with health insurance benefits. It even provides for his funeral.
• It has handed over the knowledge and skills of the hereditary occupation of a caste from one generation to another, which has helped the preservation of culture and ensured productivity.
• Caste plays a crucial role in the process of socialization by teaching individuals the culture and traditions, values and norms of their society.
• It has also led to interdependent interaction between different castes, through jajmani relationships. Caste acted as a trade union and protected its members from the exploitation.
• Promoted political stability, as Kshatriyas were generally protected from political competition, conflict and violence by the caste system.
• Maintained racial purity through endogamy.
• Specialization led to quality production of goods and thus promoted economic development. For eg: Many handicraft items of India gained international recognition due to this.

Dysfunctions of the caste system

• The caste system is a check on economic and intellectual advancement and a great stumbling block in the way of social reforms because it keeps economic and intellectual opportunities confined to a certain section of the population only.
• It undermines the efficiency of labour and prevents perfect mobility of labour, capital and productive effort
• It perpetuates the exploitation of the economically weaker and socially inferior castes, especially the untouchables.
• It has inflicted untold hardships on women through its insistence on practices like child-marriage, prohibition of widow-remarriage, seclusion of women etc.
• It opposes real democracy by giving a political monopoly to Kshatriyas in the past and acting as a vote bank in the present political scenario. There are political parties which solely represent a caste. eg: BSP was formed by Kanshi Ram mainly to represent SC, ST and OBC.
• It has stood in the way of national and collective consciousness and proved to be a disintegrating rather than an integrating factor. Caste conflicts are widely prevalent in politics, reservation in jobs and education , inter-caste marriages etc. eg: Demand for Jat reservation, agitation by Patidar community.
• It has given scope for religious conversion. The lower caste people are getting converted into Islam and Christianity due to the tyranny of the upper castes.
• The caste system by compelling an individual to act strictly in accordance with caste norms stands in the way of modernization, by opposing change.

Is the caste system unique to India?

The caste system is found in other countries like Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Caste-like systems are also found in countries like Indonesia, China, Korea, Yemen and certain countries in Africa, Europe as well.

But what distinguishes Indian caste system from the rest is the core theme of purity and pollution, which is either peripheral or negligible in other similar systems of the world. In Yemen, there exists a hereditary caste, Al-Akhdam who are kept as perennial manual workers. Burakumin in Japan, originally members of outcast communities in the Japanese feudal era, includes those with occupations considered impure or tainted by death.

However, India is unique in some aspects.

• India has had a cultural continuity that no other civilization has had. The ancient systems, religions, cultures of other civilizations have been mostly gone. In India, history is present and even the external empires mostly co-opted the system rather than changing them.
• The caste has been merged into a modern religion, making it hard to remove.
• India has integrated multiple systems more easily. What is known as “caste” in Portuguese/English is actually made of 3 distinct components –  jati, jana, varna.  Jati is an occupational identification. Jana is an ethnic identification. Varna is a philosophical identification. These have been more tightly merged over the centuries.
• In the world’s most transformative period – of the past 3 centuries, India spent most of it under European colonialism. Thus, India lost a lot of time changing. Most of the changes to the system came only in 1950 when India became a republic .

To summarize theoretically, caste as a cultural phenomenon (i.e., as a matter of ideology or value system) is found only in India while when it is viewed as a structural phenomenon, it is found in other societies too.

There are four sociological approaches to caste by distin­guishing between the two levels of theoretical formulation, i.e., cultural and structural, and universalistic and particularistic. These four ap­proaches are cultural-universalistic, cultural-particularistic, structural- universalistic and structural-particularistic.

• Structural-particularistic view of caste has maintained that the caste system is restricted to the Indian society
• Structural-universalistic category holds that caste in India is a general phenomenon of a closed form of social stratification found across the world.
• The third position of sociologists like Ghurye who treat caste as a cultural universalistic phenome­non maintains that caste-like cultural bases of stratifica­tion are found in most traditional societies. Caste in India is a special form of status-based social stratification. This viewpoint was early formulated by Max Weber.
• The cultural-particularistic view is held by Louis Dumont who holds that caste is found only in India.

Is the caste system unique to Hinduism?

Caste-based differences are practised in other religions like Nepalese Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. But the main difference is – caste system in Hinduism is mentioned in its scriptures while other religions adopted casteism as a part of socialization or religious conversions. In other words, the caste system in Hinduism is a religious institution while it is social in others.

As a general rule, higher castes converts became higher castes in other religions while lower caste converts acquired lower caste positions.

• Islam – Some upper caste Hindus converted to Islam and became part of the governing group of Sultanates and Mughal Empire, who along with Arabs, Persians and Afghans came to be known as Ashrafs . Below them are the middle caste Muslims called Ajlafs , and the lowest status is those of the
• Christianity – In Goa, Hindu converts became Christian Bamonns while Kshatriya and Vaishya became Christian noblemen called Chardos. Those Vaishya who could not get admitted into the Chardo caste became Gauddos, and Shudras became Sudirs. Dalits who converted to Christianity became Mahars and Chamars
• Buddhism – various forms of the caste system are practised in several Buddhist countries, mainly in Sri Lanka, Tibet, and Japan where butchers, leather and metal workers and janitors are sometimes regarded as being impure.
• Jainism – There are Jain castes wherein all the members of a particular caste are Jains. At the same time, there have been Jain divisions of several Hindu castes.
• Sikhism – Sikh literature mention Varna  as  Varan , and  Jati  as Zat. Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of Religion, states that the  Varan  is described as a class system, while  Zat  has some caste system features in Sikh literature.  All Gurus of Sikhs married within their  Zat , and they did not condemn or break with the convention of endogamous marriages.

Caste Divisions – The future?

The caste system in India is undergoing changes due to progress in education, technology, modernization and changes in general social outlook. In spite of the general improvement in conditions of the lower castes, India has still a long way to go, to root out the evils of the caste system from the society.

References:

• https://www.sociologyguide.com
• Sociology for Nurses by Shama Lohumi
• Indian Social system by Ram Ahuja

Article contributed by: Rehna R. Rehna is a UPSC Civil Services Exam 2016 Rank Holder.

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Reader Interactions

August 18, 2017 at 3:14 pm

wow…..exclnt…

August 18, 2017 at 7:59 pm

August 18, 2017 at 10:29 pm

i would like to receive the new posts updates to my email. i didnt find the option to join or subscribe….

August 19, 2017 at 8:53 am

Hi, Open clearias.com from a new browser (or clear your cache) and you will see the option for free email subscription.

August 29, 2017 at 4:37 pm

Wonderful explanation in all dimensions.

February 11, 2018 at 11:58 am

April 28, 2018 at 11:03 am

very nice.. matter is exactly what i was searching to teach my students..

August 18, 2018 at 9:14 am

You guys must see this video strong message.

https://youtu.be/AKTdd6GgnQw

November 9, 2021 at 7:45 pm

Good balanced writeup. Would have liked some speculation on the future of Caste in India, the appearance of the ‘fifth’ caste of Untouchables etc. But thanks.

December 24, 2021 at 10:02 pm

“All Gurus of Sikhs married within their Zat, and they did not condemn or break with the convention of endogamous marriages.” I would like to recommend a correction in this sentence given in the article. All of the Sikh Gurus condemned the caste system and the concept of endogamous marriages. The tenth Sikh Guru bestowed the last names of Kaur and Singh so that the concept of caste could be removed. Another reason for this was stop the practice of forcing females to take up the surname of their husband after marriage.

March 19, 2022 at 6:47 pm

A pure propaganda without covering any view from the natives and covers only the colonial views and you wonder why the IAS officers hate this country and dont have speck of nationalism. Next some serious question, if caste existed for thousands of years why it has its origin in spanish or porteguse race system? basically it shows europeans shoved their race system in the existing indian social system. So how does it make it a old system it is just a new system created by colonialist but blamed on indians for it. Next Both Varna and Jati are different from colonial caste. It seems govt needs to change syllabus otherwise our country will never develop.

February 4, 2023 at 10:01 pm

Exactly said. Wonder how aspiring IAS candidates are brainwashed with this false information undermining the original societal demarcation, and creating false propaganda. British have created the caste system to create infighting in India. The syllabus needs to change asap to reflect the truth.

January 7, 2023 at 9:13 pm

informative love it, thankyou <3

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The multiple faces of inequality in India

Post-doctoral research fellow in economics, Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi

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Known for its caste system, India is often thought of as one of the world’s most unequal countries. The 2022 World Inequality Report (WIR), headed by leading economist Thomas Piketty and his protégé, Lucas Chancel, did nothing to improve this reputation. Their research showed that the gap between the rich and the poor in India is at a historical high, with the top 10% holding 57% of national income – more than the average of 50% under British colonial rule (1858-1947). In contrast, the bottom half accrued only 13% of national revenue. A February report by Oxfam noted 2021 alone saw 84% of households suffer a loss of income while the number of Indian billionaires grew from 102 to 142.

Both reports highlight not only the problem of revenue inequality but also of opportunity. While there may be disagreement between left and right on the ethics of equality, there is a consensus that everyone should be given the chance to succeed and the principle of fairness – and not factors such as birth, region, race, gender, ethnicity or family backgrounds – ought to lay the foundations of a level playing field for all.

Drawing from the latest pre-pandemic database from the Periodic Labour Force Survey of 2018-19, our research confirms this is far from the case in India. On the one hand, the country has had a consistently high GDP growth rate of more than 7% for nearly two decades, the exception being the period around the 2008 financial crisis. On the other hand, this income has failed to trickle down to India’s marginalised communities, with preliminary results pointing to a higher level of inequality of opportunity in the country than in Brazil or Guatemala.

Precarity as well as a large shadow economy also plague the country’s labour market. Even before the pandemic, only 30% to 40% of regular salaried adult Indian earners had job contracts or social securities such as national pension schemes, provident fund or health insurance. For self-employed workers, the situation is even more critical, even though these constituted nearly 60% of the Indian labour force in 2019.

Castes, gender and background still determine life chances

Our research indicated that at least 30% of earning inequality is still determined by caste, gender and family backgrounds. The seriousness of this figure becomes clear when it’s compared with rates of the world’s most egalitarian countries, such as Finland and Norway, where the respective estimates are below 10% for a similar set of social and family attributes.

The caste system is a distinctive feature of Indian inequality. Emerging around 1500 BC, the hereditary social classification draws its origins from occupational hierarchy. Ancient Indian society was thought to be divided in four Varnas or castes: Brahmins (the priests), Khatriyas (the soldiers), Vaishyas (the traders) and Shudras (the servants), in order of hierarchy. Apart from the above four, there were the “untouchables” or Dalits (the oppressed), as they are called now, who were prohibited to come into contact with any of the upper castes. These groups were further subdivided in thousands of sub-castes or Jatis , with complicated internal hierarchy, eventually merged into fewer manageable categories under the British colonisation period.

The Indian constitution secures the rights of the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) through a caste-based reservation quota, by virtue of which a certain portion of higher-education admissions, public sector jobs, political or legislative representations, are reserved for them. Despite this, there is a notable earning inequality between these social categories and the rest of the population, who consists of no more than 30% to 35% of Indian population. Adopting a data-driven approach we find that, on average, SC, ST and OBC still earn less than the rest.

While unique, the caste system is not the only source of unfairness. Indeed, it accounts for less than 7% of inequality of opportunity, something that’s in itself laudable. We will need to add criteria such as gender and family background differences to explain 30% of inequality.

In a country where femicides and rapes regularly make headlines, it comes as no surprise that women from marginalised social groups are often subject to a “double disadvantage”. For some states such as Rajasthan (in the country’s northwest), Andhra Pradesh (south), Maharashtra (centre), we find even upper-caste women enjoy fewer educational opportunities than men from the marginalised SC/ST communities. Even among the graduates, while the national average employment rate for males is 70%, it is below 30% for the females.

A temporary byproduct of rising growth?

Rising inequality could be dismissed as a temporary byproduct of rapid growth on the grounds of Simon Kuznets’ famous hypothesis , according to which inequality rises with rapid growth before eventually subsiding. However, there is no guarantee of this, least of all because widening gap between rich and poor is not only limited to fast-growing countries such as India. Indeed, a 2019 study found that the growth-inequality relationship often reflects inequality of opportunity and prospects of growth are relatively dim for economies with a bumpy distribution of opportunities.

Despite sporadic evidence of converging caste or gender gaps, our research shows an intricate web of social hierarchy has been cast over every aspect of life in India. It is true that some deprived castes may withdraw from school early to explore traditional jobs available to their caste-based networks – thereby limiting their opportunities. However, are they responsible for such choices or it is the precariousness of the Indian economy that pushes them down such routes? There is no straightforward answer to these questions, even if some of the “bad choices” that individuals make can result more from pressure than choice.

Given the complicated intertwining of various forms of hierarchy in India, broad policies targeting inequality may have less success than anticipated. Dozens of factors other than caste, gender or family background feed into inequality, including home sanitation, school facilities, domestic violence, access to basic infrastructure such as electricity, water or healthcare, crime rates, political stability of the locality, environmental risks and many more.

Better data would allow researchers studying India to capture the contours of its society and also help gauge the effectiveness of policies intended to expand opportunities for the neediest.

Created in 2007 to help accelerate and share scientific knowledge on key societal issues, the AXA Research Fund has supported nearly 700 projects around the world conducted by researchers in 38 countries. To learn more, visit the site of the AXA Research Fund or follow on Twitter @AXAResearchFund.

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Essay on Caste System for Students and Children

500+ words essay on caste system.

Today the caste system is one of the major issues that people are facing. It is basically a system that separate peoples on the basis of their caste. However, it is a very common issue in India. It is present for a very long time in our country. Many people believe in it and many people don’t. It depends on the thinking and mindset of an individual. Some people are against this system and on the other hand, some are in support of this. It is basically a kind of division between the people.

Problems Due to Caste System

The higher caste children are facing a lot of difficulties in finding jobs. Earlier it was not this difficult to find job. The Scheduled Caste (SCs), Schedule Tribes (STs), and the other backward classes (OBCs) needless grades than a general candidate. This is because they get a reservation and the qualifying marks or grades for them are less as compared to the required marks of a general candidate.

This happens because of the caste system. People say that the Lower caste people deserve and need the reservation. They need it because people treat them unequally because of the discrimination occurring through the caste system. The generals see them as lower category people, not all but many. Many people are still there who don’t believe in the caste system.

Many talented students don’t get admissions in good universities and colleges. This happens because of the reservation given to the lower caste people. They get reserved seats in schools and colleges and they need to study less for the entrance exams as they need fewer marks or less performance as compared to a general student.

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Present Scenario of the Caste System

The interpersonal relations among the members of the various castes are changing for better. Inter caste marriage is still a problem in society. For many people inter-caste marriage is wrong. On the other hand, many people believe that it is not a bad concern. The higher castes are processing either money or education or even both.

Often take lead in the new commercial, administrative and industrial institutions that are now present in the planning era. Thus, those located high in the order of castes. These are still at the top of the bar and the old degrees of the prestige of caste have been replaced by an equivalent degree of economic and social power.

Attempts by the Harijans for exercising the rights provided to them by the constitution have led to attacks on them by the castes that are dominant. They are beaten and also their huts are burning in the fire that is occurring by the dominant class. Moreover, they are coming under the social boycott.

A significant development in the period before the independence of the nation is the emergence of the caste as a political force. In the life of the urban areas, new institutions are rising. In many states, the politics is turning out in caste-politics. When it comes to choosing a candidate the first thing that is considered is the caste.

FAQs on Caste System

Ques.1.Discuss any one problem due to caste system:

Ans. The most faced problem due to the caste system in society is reservation. It is a topic for which many are in favor and many are against as well. It is a major issue today and is also very sensitive.

Ques.2.What impact does the caste system create in society?

Ans. It depends on the thoughts and mindset of every particular person differently. However, it creates thinking in the mind of people because of which they judge people on the basis of the upper and lower class.

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From the india today archives (2019) | do indians vote their caste, while the voting pattern in the 2019 lok sabha polls reflects caste biases, class is increasingly playing a defining role.

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Analysts of India’s politics commonly assume that Indians vote their caste while casting their vote. While that remains largely true, the 2014 general election reflected the growing importance of some class elements within caste, which is partly due to the socio-economic differentiation of caste groups. However, caste continues to play a significant role at the jati level, a more relevant unit of analysis than the large categories of upper castes, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes. But some socio-economic differentiation is also taking place within jatis, and this process, along with other subdivisions, affects the voting pattern at that level too.

THE ‘NEO-MIDDLE CLASS’ PHENOMENON

Traditionally, caste has been considered the most important variable that must be factored in to explain the electoral behaviour of Indians. Political parties carefully analyse the caste composition of every constituency at the time of candidate selection. Lately, however, there has been some erosion of the influence of caste, and for two reasons.

First, the promise of caste-based reservations has lost momentum. In the 1990s, in the wake of the pro-Mandal mobilisation, some parties could tell OBC voters, Vote for me and you’ll get quotas.’ But such claims are not sustainable any more as quotas have reached 49 per cent their saturation point. A similar dynamic can only be started again if reservations in the private sector became a realistic prospect, but that is not the case today.

Secondly, two other variables, religion and class, have gained momentum. The former is because of the rise of Hindu nationalism, which has blurred other social markers the BJP’s propaganda inviting all members of the majority community to look at themselves as Hindu first and members of some caste groups second; the latter because of the socio-economic differentiation of Indian society. For decades, caste and class almost coincided and, as a result, from the 1990s onwards, upper castes monopolised middle-class positions.

The richer people were, the more pro-BJP they tended to be too because of both caste and class (largely because of the party’s reservations vis a vis caste-based quotas). This is still true, but some changes have occurred in the context of the post-1991 liberalisation. This process has fostered a very high growth rate that has helped some poor people to become part of what Narendra Modi called the neo-middle class in 2014. This very amorphous social category is made of aspiring people who have initiated some upward mobility and sometimes some geographical mobility too, as they shifted from rural to urban or semi-urban localities to get a non-agricultural job. Most of the members of this neo-middle class come from the OBCs the largest caste-based grouping of India and supported the BJP to a large extent in 2014. According to the Lokniti-CSDS post-election survey, the proportion of BJP voters among the OBCs belonging to the intermediate social category in terms of class jumped by 14 percentage points to reach 37 per cent, whereas only 28 per cent of the poor OBCs supported the party.

The impact of class differentiation within caste aggregates is also significant among the upper castes. While only’ 37 per cent of the poor upper castes supported the BJP in 2014 (plus 12 percentage points compared to 2009), 55 per cent of the rich of this grouping did the same (plus 22). As a result, there was a correlation between class and the BJP vote: the richer the voters were, the more supportive of the BJP they were. But the neo-middle class phenomenon qualified this linear relation because not so rich but aspiring OBCs voted massively for the BJP too, hoping that Modi would transform India with the so-called Gujarat model’ and give them jobs.

RESILIENCE OF JATI POLITICS

However, the increasingly important role of this class element did not mean that caste politics disappeared in 2014. In fact, it remained very strong at the jati level, the only relevant unit of analysis. The large aggregates upper castes, OBCs, Dalits that we have considered so far have always been very heterogenous and their voting patterns rather diverse except for a brief moment of unity in the wake of the Mandal affair of the early 1990s. Already in the 2000s, jatis were the only relevant units of analysis, at least in the Hindi belt where Yadavs would support the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Kurmis would vote for the Janata Dal (United), Jatavs for the Bahujan Samaj Party, etc.

In 2014, very interestingly, the voting pattern of both extremes of the caste system, the savarna and the Dalits, was not particularly class-sensitive at the jati level. In fact, the correlation observed above the—richer-the-more-BJP-oriented—does not apply to these extremes. Brahmins and Rajputs are a case in point, as these two jatis did not vote more for the BJP the richer they are. On the contrary, in 2014, poor Rajputs and poor Brahmins tended to vote more for the BJP than the others, including their middle and, in the case of the Brahmins, their upper classes.

This atypical phenomenon reflects the will of these poor savarna to demonstrate (and assert) their status by supporting a party, the BJP, associated with the Hindu orthodoxy and which was not in favour of caste-based reservations. At the other end of the caste system, Dalit voters were not following the standard pattern either: middle-class Dalits did not vote more than poor Dalits for the BJP in 2014.

Certainly, the Dalit voters have somewhat rallied around the BJP, at the expense of the Congress and the BSP. But less than one-fourth of them supported Modi’s party and the class effect is discreet. In fact, class makes almost no difference, except in the case of the upper class and, interestingly, the BSP has almost retained the same percentage of upper-class Dalit voters as in 2009. These figures suggest that parameters other than class need to be factored in again. Ideology matters a lot here, given the rejection that Hindutva has traditionally provoked among the more politicised (and educated) Ambedkarites in spite of Modi’s efforts to appropriate Ambedkar by misinterpreting his thought.

However, we need to disaggregate the Dalit category too along jati lines, as some jatis are more sensitive to class than others. The Jatavs are a case in point, as their voting pattern reveals a reverse correlation compared to what we have observed so far. The impact of the class element mentioned above the-richer-the-more-BJP-oriented works here for the BSP: the richer the Jatav voters were in 2014, the more supportive of the BSP they were. This is due to both ideology and material interests as Mayawati’s rule benefitted this group the most when she was in office. The Jatavs have become an interest group and BSP their political instrument. As a result, other Dalit jatis, including the Balmikis and Pasis, have tended to support other parties, irrespective of class.

So, while the OBC voters tend to be directly influenced by class considerations, the voting patterns of Brahmins, Rajputs and Jatavs show that at both extremities of the caste system, jati-based identities matter more and class matters less, because these groups are more sensitive to status, to reservation-related issues and to clientelistic’ relations with party leaders (Mayawati or Lok Janshakti Party’s Ram Vilas Paswan). This pattern is also well illustrated by the voting pattern of one of the largest OBC jatis, the Yadavs, that we need to scrutinise at the state level as, in fact, most of the OBC jatis are not politically meaningful beyond the limits of one state.

JATIS MATTER AT THE STATE LEVEL

Jati remains one of the most relevant units of analysis for understanding electoral behaviour at the state level, because a relative majority of each jati aligns itself with one party. For instance, the Yadavs tend to support the SP in UP and the RJD in Bihar. Jatavs support the BSP in UP and Rajputs support the BJP. This state of things may result from emotional attachment to the leaders of these parties who belong to the same jati. But it can also be explained by clientelistic practices. In that case, jati members will vote for a certain party not only because its leader is from the same caste group but also (and possibly, more importantly) because, if elected, this leader will acknowledge the support by giving government jobs to members of his caste, redistribute state resources etc.

However, this logic does not fully neutralise the class element, as is evident from the voting pattern of the Yadavs in UP and Bihar. While 82 per cent of the poor Yadavs voted for the SP in 2014 in UP, less than 50 per cent of those who were better-off did the same because of the new popularity of the BJP among them. The situation is more complicated on the RJD side, partly because of its seat adjustment with the Congress (which explains why 29 per cent of rich Yadavs supported the Grand Old Party) but, here again, the upper layer of the Yadavs has been more attracted than any other by the BJP at the expense of the RJD.

Among the Yadavs, therefore, a class element needs to be factored in for making sense of their voting pattern. This is due to the appeal of Modi’s populism across castes (including the way he promoted his OBC background), but it is also a reflection of the growing socioeconomic differentiation of the Yadavs. In UP, the India Human Development Surveys conducted in 2004-05 and 2011-12 show increasing inequalities between the rich and poor Yadavs. This gap partly comes from the fact that 17 per cent of the Yadavs of UP are agricultural labourers (landless peasants).

Thus, class-related variations of jatis’ voting patterns are more pronounced for the Yadavs than for the Brahmins and Rajputs. This is due to the intermediary position of OBCs in the caste system that makes them less status-sensitive, but it also reflects the neo-middle class effect.

To sum up: while we can still explain electoral behaviour of Indians on the basis of their caste background, new variables need to be factored in, including class. Secondly, caste does not make the same impact in a perfectly uniform manner: if OBCs are more influenced by class-related considerations, the savarnas and Dalits, because they occupy the two ends of the caste system, are more status-sensitive. As a result, their voting pattern continues to be more over-determined by caste. Third, caste matters more significantly at the jati level, as large aggregates like OBCs or even Dalits have only been politically relevant in the context of a crisis like Mandal. Correlatively, as jatis are mostly meaningful at the state level, it is also at the state level that one must study the politics of caste.

Two caveats must be added to these conclusions. First, caste may play an even more complicated role at the local level, according to the arithmetic of caste groups at the constituency level and the strategies of parties in ticket distribution. In order to do justice to local rivalries and factions, in fact, one should scrutinise caste politics at the micro level. Second, in some cases, the relevant unit of analysis may not be the jati but its subdivisions. Patels are a case in point in Gujarat, as evident from the accompanying table showing the voting preference of the Karwa Patels and the Leuva Patels in the 2012 state election.

These figures reconfirm the importance of the caste of the parties’ leaders: the fact that the founder of the Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP), Keshubhai Patel, was a Leuva largely explains why almost one-third of the Leuva Patels supported this party. This year, another Karwa Patel (Hardik Patel) is campaigning in the Lok Sabha election in support of a different party (Congress). Whether sub-groupings (the Karwas or the Leuvas) will transcend political allegiances and class differentiations remains to be seen.

—The writer is a senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po (Paris)

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Casi election conversations 2024: pavithra suryanarayan on the bjp, “social status,” and anti-redistributive politics.

Questions over redistribution and social justice politics versus religious fault-lines seem front and center once again in India’s ongoing general elections. How is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—which has historically been ambivalent about social justice politics—mobilizing poorer voters, especially among the upper castes? What role does “social status” play in how voters choose their candidates? And when do anti-redistributive politics become salient?

In the fourth interview of the casi election conversations 2024, casi consulting editor rohan venkat speaks to pavithra suryanarayan (assistant professor in the government department at the london school of economics and political science) about her research into the awakening of “social status” as an identity category, when social justice politics leads to a backlash that ends up hollowing out the state, and what other big questions about indian politics she would like to see studied. .

Rohan: Could you tell us what you’ve been seeking to understand in your research?

Pavithra: I broadly work on three topics. First, I study how people's identities shape vote choice and their attitudes toward redistribution. Second, I study the politics of building state capacity. The third is an area of research that I have developed with a co-author, Francesca Jensenius, which focuses on party organization and party systems in the Indian states. I believe our conversation today will focus a lot on the first research agenda, which is how do people's identities shape their worldview and by extension, their political behavior?

Rohan: Quoting from one of your other papers, “scholars of the world’s most populous democracy invariably agree that elements of identity are central to Indian politics, but there have been few efforts to assess empirically which dimensions of identity are most important to understanding electoral choice, or to understand how the economic attributes of groups might be related to the salience of group identity in elections.” I want to get a sense of what is already out there in the field on these questions before we get to your work.

Pavithra: India is a country teeming with multiple identities—religion, language, caste. Of these identities, caste is what I focus on. On an everyday level, people don't just experience their caste as upper caste or lower caste, they also experience it as a localized jati or biradari, which then shapes a whole range of socio-economic outcomes—what jobs they do, who they marry, what they eat, how they dress, to even the dialect they speak. Caste is interesting because it has many attributes. In American political science, there was a recent paper called “ Race as a Bundle of Sticks ,” because race in the American context is a bundle of many attributes. We can think about caste in a similar way. Caste endows a person social rank, occupation, phenotype, a linguistic dialect, and caste can be a bundle of cultural or religious rituals you practice as a consequence of the local jati that you inhabit.

If we think about caste as an identity that matters to politics, we have to ask, “ which attribute of caste is playing on people's views on what they want from politics?" I've tried to tease out a few of those threads, most notably how the rank that people inherit from caste shapes political behavior.

Rohan: We’ve always understood that caste is important, with the old cliché about not casting your vote, but “voting your caste.” What you’re trying to do is get to what, within caste, is important. What do you mean by “rank” here?

Pavithra: Now we come to the part of my research that tries to put some structure and shape to how to think about this. I'm going to use the phrase “social status,” which is quite loaded because it can mean very different things to different people depending on what trajectory of social science research they follow. But here, when I say social status, I mean an inherited rank that comes through descent. Social status is relatively sticky; you cannot get rid of that inherited status that you have received as you go through your life. You may become richer or poorer but your inherited rank stays with you. What makes this a relatively new conceptualization of social status is that rank is not an attribute, it is the constitutive attribute of the identity. If you lose the social status distinction, the identity category ceases to exist.

In my work, I theorize caste as a social status identity, which is different from viewing it as an ethnic category or a class category. We have extensive research on caste as an ethnic category and how it shapes politics, voting, and political parties. Much of this research, however, doesn’t consider what constitutive attribute of a particular caste might be the key factor in increasing caste salience.

Thinking about caste as a social status identity, where rank is the chief constitutive attribute of the identity, allows us to then think about when, why, and for which castes social status emerges as a salient identity cleavage in politics. It allows us to more clearly understand the factors that come into people's utility functions when they think about caste and politics.

Rohan: To clarify for those unfamiliar with social science terminology, “rank” here is the perceived idea of where you are situated in society on a hierarchical scale.

Pavithra: That's right. Thank you for pointing that out, because it might not just be for people who don't understand social science. There might be people who don't understand how caste as an identity is structured. Historically, a central organizing feature of the caste system was hierarchy. We can think about it as the classic Varna categories of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Shudra, and so on. Or we can just think about it in contemporary terms as the agglomerations that social scientists in India use as upper caste, peasant proprietary caste, the upper creamy layer other backward classes (OBCs), lower OBCs, scheduled caste, scheduled tribes (SC/ST), and so on.

When you face challenges to your social status—ie, your inherited rank in the caste system—what you're fighting tooth and nail for is to maintain rank as the organizing principle in a society. What you're, in fact, afraid of is a state of the world where caste is merely ethnicity or caste is merely class, which takes away the utility that people get from inheriting rank in a caste system.

Rohan: I wanted to focus on the paper titled, “ When do the poor vote for the right-wing and why: Hierarchy and vote choice in the Indian states. ” Can you tell us what you set out to do in the paper and what it finds?

Pavithra: In this paper, I do something that we don't regularly see in Indian politics. I theorize that upper caste Brahmins hold a distinct set of motivations for politics. There is a graph in that paper that caught my attention when I first made it using survey data from 2004 National Election Surveys. We don't have much information on castes enumeration or the economic location of castes in contemporary India because we haven't done a caste census since independence. The NES surveys that document jati-level data are some of the best measures of the economic and social location of caste groups across the Indian state.

If we look at the distribution of wealth across India's caste groups, we see something intriguing. One, that Brahmins, who are India's upper castes, are more heterogeneous in their economic profiles than scheduled castes and tribes. While on average, they tend to be the wealthiest group across the country, there are a number of poor Brahmins in India. What also caught my attention is that intra-Brahmin inequality looks a lot like intra-upper OBC or intra-other upper caste inequality. I wanted to understand: do poor Brahmins then think about politics in the same way as poor backward castes?

Here, what do I mean by politics? I mean redistributive politics—what do they want from their government in terms of redistribution? Are poor Brahmins like other poor backward castes in that they want the government to do more welfare, more tax-and-transfer, and to do more in poverty alleviation? Or are poor Brahmins similar to wealthier Brahmins in that they hold more circumspect redistributive preferences where they want the government to limit its role in the economy and get out of managing welfare? What grew out of this chart was an interest in understanding India's upper castes, particularly Brahmins.

This is quite new because historically, much of social science work has gone into understanding how lower castes, particularly marginal castes like SC/ST and lower OBCs, have made claims on the state or on politics. I'm focusing the attention on upper castes and making the claim that this group has expressed very distinctive political preferences in different time periods in history.

Rohan: What do you find? What are poor Brahmins expressing in terms of preference?

Pavithra: This particular paper makes use of the time period before and after Prime Minister V.P. Singh's speech around implementing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission (introducing reservations for OBCs in government jobs and higher education). It argues that there was a shift in voting away from the Congress and toward the BJP in the state elections that were held right after the Mandal announcement in 1990. The paper argues that the Mandal speech by Prime Minister Singh awakened a social status identity that was somewhat dormant in upper castes in the previous period, because government policy in India until that point hadn't overtly gone into arenas that disturbed upper caste privilege. And here, a central feature of upper caste, particularly Brahmin privilege, historically, has been their control of education. It's a central aspect of Brahminical identity, intertwined with their role as priests. The prospect of desegregating higher education institutions, and by extension, the bureaucracy that comes with having held access to education historically, was interpreted as a status threat amongst India's upper caste Brahmins.

This catalyzed a shift away from supporting parties like the Congress in a previous era and toward the BJP, which, in this time period, started to explicitly speak the language of de-bureaucratizing and anti-affirmative action policies. And so, this moment allows you to understand how an identity like social status, which derives from rank, shapes people's voting preferences.

If this argument is right, would we see the effects most sharply in some places over others? This involved actually going back to the most comprehensive census we have of local caste groupings and caste inequality around status, which is the 1931 census. I digitized the 1931 census data at the taluk-level in order to then be able to make claims that that same underlying structure of caste and status inequality suddenly came alive as a key predictor of voting after the Mandal announcement precisely in places where that inequality around rank was greater.

Rohan: What you discover is that, based on this data from the 1920s and 1930s, Brahmin-dominated spaces corresponded to preferences for the BJP after reservations were announced in 1990. And this holds up specifically for poor Brahmins?

Pavithra: Part one of the paper allowed me to first illustrate that places which had more Brahmin dominance [in 1930] had a greater rise in voting for the BJP in the period after the Mandal announcement. The second part of the paper gets into the individual level dynamics of who these people are who support the BJP. I used data from the 2004 National Election Surveys. I was able to show that upper castes, particularly Brahmins, who lived in historically Brahmin-dominated areas, were more likely to vote for the BJP. Importantly, poor Brahmins living in Brahmin-dominated areas were more likely to vote for the BJP.

I also explored a series of questions on redistributive politics, which ask voters things like, is it the government's role to care for poverty? I find that poor Brahmins are more anti-redistributive if they live in historically Brahmin-dominated areas. There's something about the context where rank and social status is more salient that it turns the poor members of a high rank group against state-led welfare and redistribution. It links the support for the BJP to the evolution of anti-redistributive politics amongst high status groups.

Rohan: Since this is also the time of the Ayodhya movement and the Babri Masjid demolition, couldn’t that explain the upper-caste support for the BJP? How do you conclude that it was specifically a response to Mandal?

Pavithra: In the paper, just like I created measures of Brahmin dominance, I also create measures of Muslim size and population. I rely on the intuitions of other scholars of ethnic politics who have argued that, "you might perceive the threat of out-groups more if you're more equally sized to them." If it is Babri Masjid and the rise of Hindutva politics that was doing this and not Mandal, then either controlling for size of Muslims in a constituency should take away the effects of the historic Brahmin dominance measure or the measures should work through Brahmin dominance in that, what they're doing is picking up more upper caste support for Hindutva politics. And neither of those two things are what happens when I examine the data.

The data shows there is an effect of Muslim populations in the assembly constituencies in rallying support for the BJP, but that doesn't take away the independent role of Brahmin dominance in those districts. Second, the effect of the Hindutva ideology seems to be greater in low-Brahmin-dominant areas than high-Brahmin-dominant areas, which means two things are happening simultaneously in India in this moment. One, the reverberating effects of Mandal that are shaping the behavior of India's upper castes and the effects of mobilization around a Hindu identity, which might be allowing the BJP to seek votes from non-upper caste groups against their political competitors. The strongest version of my claim would be that Hindutva itself was, in some ways, a reaction to the fallout of Mandal, that the BJP needed a strategy that could both bring Brahmins and upper castes on board, while also rallying non-upper castes into the fold. But a different empirical paper needs to be written to push that claim.

Rohan: The BJP no longer seems quite as anti-reservations or anti-redistributive in the way it was in the 1990s…

Pavithra: I will say two things. I still think the BJP is one of the few parties that does not believe in affirmative action. It doesn't overtly act on it, but if you engage with its party platforms and what its leaders have been saying, it has a very non-affirmative action policy bench. And that has stayed quite consistent over the last 40 years, since Mandal. The other thing I will say is that we have to ask, what sort of redistribution is the current BJP doing? A central argument in my paper and my ongoing book project is that broad strokes redistribution may not threaten upper caste status identity. This is why India's upper caste were quite comfortable with the redistributive policies of the Grand Old Party Congress.

The kinds of policies that upset upper caste enclaves are attempts to genuinely integrate institutions. This is why Mandal was such a pivotal moment, because here was a prime minister who said, "There are limitations to political power. Political power means nothing unless institutions themselves are run by lower castes." Explicit in Prime Minister V.P. Singh's speech was this idea that lower castes not only needed political representation, they needed to control the state. They genuinely needed to be part of key enclaves of upper caste dominance.

And you don't see the BJP doing much of that. The BJP in its current form is toeing the line between appeasing its upper caste interests of institutional control while also providing redistribution of the form that doesn't disturb these enclaves. The current BJP is a good manifestation of how an ideal upper caste party wants to function. And this is also reflected in findings by Tariq Thachil who discusses how BJP and its allied organizations provide social welfare to marginal groups while allowing policy and institutions to remain in the hands of their upper caste core constituents.

Rohan: There’s a complex interplay there, given that the BJP always embraced anti-reservation thought, but also has had to embrace other strains of political culture, so much that its big move ahead of the 2019 elections was to bring in reservations for upper castes in the form of the EWS quota. To come back to the paper and book project, what are the implications of your findings, not just for India but this research at large?

Pavithra: The book project develops the idea that if you want to understand redistributive politics in some countries, you need to take two things seriously. The first is that the contestation in politics doesn’t only hinge on material redistribution, it can hinge on rank or social status.

The second is that we focus overtly on representation in the political arena, which is fighting elections and putting an MLA or an MP into office, and then we say, “job done." But in fact, the arena that might truly matter is the state itself. Control of the bureaucracy and bureaucratic capacity might be important to certain groups in a society.

Historically in many places like India, the United States, South Africa, etc., the state has been key to not only providing security and taxes, but has been key to social organization. In these countries, the state was central in allowing segregation to continue. Integrating the state can create a backlash that reverberates in politics.

I have a paper on the American South on how the end of the Civil War produced this backlash as African Americans were emancipated and made claims on redistribution, and many of them made claims through becoming part of the state. African Americans became not just voters and representatives, they became census enumerators and local bureaucrats. What followed was a period of backlash against the state, which led to weakened state capacity and a deliberate attempt to keep the state weak in order to limit its welfare ability.

The book spells out how the increased salience of a social status identity leads to anti-redistributive politics. We observe anti-redistributive politics in three ways. First, at the micro level, it lowers individual level support for redistribution amongst high status groups. Second, at a meso level, it weakens state capacity, particularly bureaucratic capacity. Third, at a macro level, it changes coalitions of voters in the political landscape, making it possible now for right-wing parties to gain new constituents who are worried about protecting their social status and not just their income or their ethnicity.

Rohan: How do we see that backlash in the Indian context?

Pavithra: I use three different methods to get through this micro, meso, macro. At the micro level, we have just completed a series of survey experiments in Uttar Pradesh with a colleague, Simon Chauchard, where we examine upper caste versus middle caste—which is upper OBC—preferences for redistribution once they're experimentally informed about who controls the state. Tentatively, what we find is that upper castes turn more anti-redistributive when exposed to information about a more integrated state. We see no such trend amongst either the wealthy or the poor upper OBCs in the survey experiment.

For meso-level institutional findings, I go back a hundred years to what happens to tax collections and tax capacity in colonial India after the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. I focus on two provinces in colonial India—Madras and Bombay—where the status threat was very high because in the pre-Montagu world, the bureaucracies of these provinces were almost entirely dominated by upper caste Brahmins. I show that Brahmin-dominant areas experienced a greater weakening of taxation and tax collections after Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms are announced because again, the threat of integrating the state weighs very heavily on upper-castes, who, in these places, have historically consumed key goods like education that were central to their caste identity.

Historic upper caste dominance, particularly Brahmin dominance, is associated with an anti-tax backlash, even while controlling for other factors that could explain the same phenomenon like land-based fights and land inequality or simply ethnic fragmentation or ethnic competition at the local level. And then you have the macro level findings, which is where we started this conversation—the BJP paper that shows the same thing in contemporary India before and after Mandal.

Thinking about these at the micro, the meso, and the macro gives us a fuller picture of how the same impulses shape an anti-redistributive politics, but only when the status is threatened. These are groups that were very pro-bureaucracy, very pro-redistribution, much more comfortable in welfarist politics. But they shift to an anti-redistributive mindset when their status is threatened. And that's what the survey experiment shows, that's what that moment of Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms shows, and then again, Mandal. And I'm hard-pressed to think if this is totally wrong, what alternative explanation could explain all three of those findings in exactly the same direction or way.

Rohan: There is often this idea that poorer voters who support anti-redistributive parties are making irrational choices—voting against their interest by going against redistributive politics. This could work to explain that, and it also made me think immediately about whether it explains efforts to make white communities in America, or Hindus in general, feel threatened in their rank.

Pavithra: In my book manuscript and my papers, I push back against the notion that poor whites or upper castes are “irrational.” Instead, what they are attempting to maximize are a rank-based set of goods. Losing rank means they no longer belong to that exclusive club that allows them a whole range of material goods, not just psychological wages, as Du Bois called, "wages of whiteness." Yes, there are some psychological or psychic goods that people get, but they also get a very specific set of goods that has been so important to reifying rank in the first place. This is why I started with education because this was the domain of Brahmins for centuries, and one that allowed them to then become such a key part of the state through both the pre-colonial and colonial era.

This particular good—education—was key to the rank in social life. Your local priest or your teacher is the one with the words, the one who knows how to read the religious text and gets a great deal of social status bestowed on them as a function of that, and then becomes a key player within the state and gets to set policy and rules again, based on that rank attribute of education being so central to Brahminical social status. What I want to say is that it's rational for voters in different contexts to try and defend these segregated goods because it's a form of inheritance that they give to their children, this rank, and they fight tooth and nail to maintain it and prevent the world becoming about an ethnic group one versus ethnic group two or rich versus poor dynamic. This defense of rank, it's fully rational if what you're trying to maximize here is your social status.

Then comes the second question—“When we see Hindu-Muslim dynamics in contemporary India, would this be similar?" Maybe. I don't want to do too much concept-stretching. Maybe we are in a hundred-year process by which Muslims in India are being relegated to a certain social rank, which over time might start to resemble what we are seeing with upper versus lower castes in India. But I'm not comfortable making that conceptual stretch. I think a different analogy might work, and this is gender. Here too, you see status differences because of a function of birth, and is gender a form of rank, and can the concepts of defending status and rank apply to gender politics? Possibly. And this is something that's on my mind as I explore future research.

Rohan: Have there been critiques or responses to the work that you have found useful?

Pavithra: I think the first critique people make is that it's hard to think about status without its material underpinnings. How can you imagine that somebody has social status without also having wealth or some form of capital or income or sources of power that social status needs? I think this is why the study of the Indian caste system has been so illuminating. It allows me, both historically and in the contemporary moment, to find groups that are relatively evenly placed on their economic attributes, but differ on their birthplace rank and how it's here that you see the difference. That's a criticism I face a lot, and I think a lot about. The second criticism comes from ethnic politics scholars who say, "Well, you've just defined ethnic group A versus B, of which maybe what they're fighting over is rank. So, how is this different?"

And to them I say, well, rank is a very central and constitutive feature of the identity. This is not a case that just because Brahmins lose rank, they'll go on to just being happy about their cultural group and become one other ethnic group in India's many ethnic groups. No. I think here we need to understand what game it is that upper castes want to play versus what game it is that other groups are playing. And if they're not even playing the same game, you cannot expect that they will behave like the other group. And so, if one group wants to maximize wealth and income and the other group wants to maximize social status and rank, well, these are different games. That's another area for which I get criticism.

The third is the kind that comparative politics scholars give, which is, "Oh, is this all about caste? How far does this carry?" This is why it was important for me to think about, well, where else can I show this at play? I wrote the paper with Stephen White on the American South to show that actually the defense of rank carries very nicely to other contexts like America where the defining feature is race, not caste, but it's the same inherited social status that poor whites are defending. So, I think these are roughly my critics and I hope to keep doing work to rally to the challenge.

Rohan: Has it been difficult to make the case that the study of India cannot be translated or compared to the rest of the world?

Pavithra: Well, much less so now than when I first started my Ph.D. I remember I had to always prepare in every presentation a little slide about, "Why should you care after learning X about India?" And I think we are living in a moment where there are so many amazing social scientists across political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, demonstrating how the study of India's social, economic, and political structures is meaningful and valuable to compare to politics and social science as a whole. I get that question a lot less. I think that's growth in the field.

Rohan: Are there big questions about Indian politics that you want to see studied?

Pavithra: One is, I think we should constantly test our assumptions of how politics work. If you think about some of the most interesting recent works on Indian politics, Francesca Jensenius questioning " Have reservations really mattered ?" Tariq Thachil asking, " Why are STs voting or in support of the BJP ?" Or Milan Vaishnav asking, " Why do voters, knowing people are corrupt and criminals, still vote for them? " And more recently, someone like Feyaad Ali questioning the idea that there is such a thing as a uniform Muslim vote . All of these are going back to some first principles questions on, does politics work the way we think our inherited wisdom tells us it works? And if not, why is politics the way it is? I think we should keep doing that, go back to pushing the what-we-think-we-know questions.

But more broadly, I think India is at this funny crossroads of the North-South divide, which I'm intrigued by. And I want to understand more about the institutional, economic, and social dynamics of why that divide is so clearly emerging. This is all to say, I hope more people will study Tamil politics and Bengali politics and Malayali politics, because I think there's a lot to be learned from why politics look so different in one part of the country versus another.

Rohan: Are there recommendations for those interested in this space?

Pavithra: I have learned a great deal from American politics scholars within the course of my Ph.D. Ira Katznelson was the one who started getting me on this path of thinking about the relationship between identity and the stage. If people haven't heard of him or read his work, Ira Katznelson is a giant and his book, When Affirmative Action Was White , was really influential for me. And more recently, the US too is on a journey to understanding why social status is key to how we think about politics. Kathy Cramer’s The Politics of Resentment and Ashley Jardina’s White Identity Politics , I'd very strongly recommend.

Going back to what I was saying earlier, we need more scholarship questioning the first fundamental premise of things. So, I can't recommend highly enough Jennifer Bussell's book, Clients and Constituents , which pushes us to get away from this thinking that India's MLAs and MPs are not doing much, but instead they actually are doing a lot of constituency service. And what that looks like doesn't again conform to our preconceived notions of Indian politics. I think gender and gender's intersection with caste is a recently growing important part of research on Indian politics. Please read anything by Francesca Jensenius and more recently, Tanushree Goyal, Rachel Brulé, and Soledad Prillaman, who are pushing the envelope on thinking through why and how gender matters in Indian politics.

Pavithra Suryanarayan is an Assistant Professor in the Government Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In August 2024, she will be an Associate Professor in the Government Department at the LSE.

Rohan Venkat is the Consulting Editor for India in Transition and a CASI Spring 2024 Visiting Fellow.

As millions of Indians set out to vote over the next two months, India in Transition brings you CASI Election Conversations 2024, an interview series featuring renowned scholars reflecting on the factors and dimensions of politics, political economy, and democracy that will define India’s 2024 election. Earlier in the series, we featured Louise Tillin on federalism in India , Yamini Aiyar on the BJP’s “Techno-Patrimonial” welfare model and Rachel Brulé on the promises and pitfalls of gender quotas .

India in Transition ( IiT ) is published by the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) of the University of Pennsylvania. All viewpoints, positions, and conclusions expressed in IiT are solely those of the author(s) and not specifically those of CASI.

© 2024 Center for the Advanced Study of India and the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved.