Caste system and caste inequalities today

Detail

1. What the caste system is

• Caste system: an extreme form of hereditary occupational division. Jobs were passed down by birth, and rituals gave this arrangement religious approval.
• Each caste followed three main rules:
• Occupation: you did the work your caste was born into.
• Endogamy (marriage only inside your own group): you married within your caste.

• Commensality (rules on who can eat with whom): you ate only with members of your own caste.

• "Outcaste" groups were kept outside the system. They faced exclusion, discrimination and untouchability (being treated as "polluting" to touch, which barred them from wells, temples, schools and shared spaces).

• Jati: the caste group, or a subdivision of it, that a person is born into and usually marries within. In everyday speech it is often called a "community" (NCERT Class 6, Family and Community).
• Caste hierarchy: a ladder that ranks castes from the "highest" to the "lowest". Status, purity and access to resources follow this ladder.

2. Reformers who fought caste

Reformer	Key contribution
Jotiba Phule (Maharashtra)	Founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873). Worked for the education of lower castes and women.
Mahatma Gandhi	Campaigned against untouchability and called "untouchables" Harijans.
B.R. Ambedkar	Led Dalit movements, was chairman of the Drafting Committee and wrote in safeguards against caste discrimination.
Periyar E.V. Ramaswami Naicker (Tamil Nadu)	Led the Self-Respect Movement (from 1925) against Brahminical hierarchy. It fed into Dravidian politics (see regional-aspirations).

3. Forces breaking down the old hierarchy

• Economic development created new jobs that are not tied to caste.
• Urbanisation (people moving from villages into towns and cities): in a crowded city, it matters little who walks or eats beside you.
• Literacy and education opened doors that birth used to close.
• Occupational mobility (a new generation taking up work different from its ancestors') broke the link between caste and job.
• The decline of village landlords weakened the upper-caste hold on rural land and labour.
• Mobility routes described by M.N. Srinivas:
• Sanskritisation: a lower caste takes up upper-caste customs, such as a vegetarian diet, rituals or dress, to claim higher status. Srinivas first described it in Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952).
• Westernisation: changes that come from contact with Western ways, such as English education, new jobs, dress and lifestyle.
• Sanskritisation can change a caste's position on the ladder, but the ladder itself stays.

4. Constitutional and legal anchors against caste discrimination

• Article 15: the State cannot discriminate on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Art. 15(4) was added by the 1st Amendment (1951) and allows special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes, SCs and STs.
• Article 16(4): allows reservation in public jobs for backward classes that are not adequately represented.
• Article 17: "Untouchability" is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. Enforcing any disability that arises from untouchability is an offence punishable by law. [4]
• Laws made under Article 17:
• Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 → amended in 1976 and renamed the Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act, 1955. It punishes the preaching and practice of untouchability. [5][7]

• SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 → came into force on 30 January 1990. It provides Special Courts for trying atrocities, plus relief and rehabilitation for victims. [6][7]

• These protections are the base for later policies meant to undo caste injustice, such as reservation and the national commissions for SCs and STs (see vulnerable-sections-safeguards).

5. What persists

• Endogamy continues: most Indians still marry within their caste or tribe. Inter-caste marriage was only about 5% in the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2011-12 (verify).
• Untouchability has not ended: in IHDS-II (2011-12), about 27% of households admitted practising it in some form (verify). This is despite the ban in Art. 17 and the PCR Act. [4][5]
• Old advantages carry forward: caste groups that had early access to education now dominate the urban middle class. Groups that were denied education are still catching up.

6. Caste inequality today — the data

• Caste inequality: a person's economic status still roughly follows their caste's old position on the ladder.
• Rural population below the poverty line (NSSO 55th Round, 1999-2000):

Group	% below poverty line
Scheduled Tribes	45.8
Scheduled Castes	35.9
OBCs	27.0
Muslim upper castes	26.8
Hindu upper castes	11.7
All groups	27.0

• Graduates per 1,000 people in urban India (NCERT Class 11, Equality):

Group	Graduates per 1,000
Scheduled Castes	47
Muslims	61
Hindu OBCs	86
Scheduled Tribes	109
Hindu upper castes	253
All-India	155

• Rich and poor now exist in every caste. But the average status of each group still follows the old order: STs and SCs at the bottom, upper castes at the top.
• Multidimensional poverty: the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures poverty through health, education and living standards, not income alone.
• NITI Aayog has been the nodal agency since 2020.
• The national MPI uses 12 indicators, while the global MPI uses 10. [9]
• By NITI's Progress Review 2023, 13.5 crore people left multidimensional poverty between 2015-16 and 2019-21.
• In the same period, rural poverty fell from 32.59% to 19.28% and urban poverty from 8.65% to 5.27%. [8]

• NFHS-based estimates still show the highest multidimensional poverty among STs, then SCs (verify current figures).

• Newer markers of caste inequality:

• who owns land
• who sits in the higher judiciary, the senior bureaucracy and the media
• who gets private-sector and elite-education jobs, where reservation does not apply (verify figures)

7. Counting caste — Census 2027

• Since Independence, censuses have counted only SCs and STs. All other castes were left out of census operations. [2]
• On 30 April 2025, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) decided to include caste enumeration (counting every person's caste) in Census 2027. It is the first full caste count since Independence. [2]
• The government notified its intent to hold the census in the Gazette on 16 June 2025, under Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948. [2][3]
• Two phases:
• Phase I: house-listing.

• Phase II: Population Enumeration, due in February 2027. Caste will be counted in this phase. [2][3]

• The Phase II questions, including the caste questions, will be notified before Phase II begins. Census 2027 is also India's first digital census, with a self-enumeration option. [3]

• Why it matters: caste data will shape debates on reservation limits, sub-categorisation of groups and targeting of welfare.

Prelims Hooks

• Article 17 abolishes "untouchability" and forbids its practice "in any form". The Constitution does not define "untouchability".
• Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 → renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act by the 1976 amendment.
• SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 came into force on 30 January 1990 and provides Special Courts.
• Sanskritisation was coined by M.N. Srinivas in his Coorg study (1952). It means mobility within the caste system, not its abolition.
• Self-Respect Movement → Periyar (1925). Satyashodhak Samaj → Jotiba Phule (1873).
• NSSO 1999-2000: the rural BPL share is highest for STs (45.8%), then SCs (35.9%). The OBC figure (27.0%) equals the all-groups figure.
• Urban graduates per 1,000: STs (109) are ahead of SCs (47), Muslims (61) and Hindu OBCs (86). This is a common trap.
• Census 2027: the caste-enumeration decision was made by the CCPA on 30 April 2025. Caste is counted in Phase II, and the census is held under the Census Act, 1948.
• National MPI: NITI Aayog is the nodal agency. It has 12 indicators, compared with 10 in the global MPI.

Mains Points

• Change vs persistence (GS-I, Indian society):
• Urbanisation, education and occupational mobility have weakened ritual hierarchy.
• But endogamy, untouchability and caste-graded poverty remain.

• Caste has moved from ritual status to economic and political identity.

• Limits of legal remedies (GS-II):

• Article 17, the PCR Act and the PoA Act have made untouchability a crime, yet it continues.
• Enforcement gaps include low conviction rates, slow Special Courts and social pressure on victims.

• Law alone cannot change social practice.

• New inequalities beyond reservation:

• Under-representation in the higher judiciary, the media, the private sector and elite education points to debates on diversity reporting.

• Other debates are private-sector affirmative action and the "creamy layer" being extended to SCs and STs.

• Caste census debate:

• For: caste data allows evidence-based policy, sub-categorisation and fair sharing of benefits.
• Against: it risks hardening caste identities and fuelling competition for reservation.
• The 2027 count will test whether data can be used for justice without deepening caste divisions.