World History: Digital Scrapbook Entry #5 India

Current event: http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/06/affirmative-action

Past event:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit

" Indian Scheduled Classes - Then and Now"

In the context of traditional Hindu society Dalit status has been historically associated with occupations regarded as ritually impure such as any involving leather work, butchering, removal of rubbish, dead animals, and human waste. Dalits worked as manual laborers cleaning streets, latrines, and sewers. Engaging in these activities was considered to be polluting to the individual and this pollution was considered contagious. As a result, Dalits were commonly segregated and banned from full participation in Hindu social life. For example, they could not enter a temple or a school, and were required to stay outside the village. Complicated rules were often observed to prevent accidental contact between Dalits and other castes. So in olden times Dalits often remained excluded from local religious and other life.

India’s experiment with affirmative action is the world’s oldest. Known locally as “reservation” policy it is an elaborate quota system for public jobs and places in publicly funded colleges. For example the Indian Institutes of Technology and in most elected assemblies have a quota system. The quotas are filled by members of designated disadvantaged groups called scheduled classes. Instead of trying to find out whether this practice helps the scheduled classes politicians focus on extending it to new blocks of voters. By the late 1980s after a commission of inquiry extended the quotas to lowly but non-“scheduled” Hindu castes, known collectively as the OBCs for “Other Backward Classes”, some 27% of the population. Only 2% of all jobs in India are affected by these quotas since most jobs are casual in India as opposed to formal. Discrimination against Dalits still exists in rural areas in everyday matters such as access to eating places, schools, temples and water sources but it has largely disappeared in urban areas and in the public Hindu. In rural India, however, caste origins are more readily apparent and Dalits often remain excluded from local religious life, though there is some evidence to suggest that the severity of discrimination against Dalits and other scheduled classes is fast diminishing.

There are many more opportunities for the scheduled classes today, than before. But the caste system is not disappearing in India. Affirmative action has the opposite effect from causing the caste system to disappear since by identifying oneself with and emphasizing that one is a member of a scheduled class one can obtain government jobs and entrance to better schools. The effect of is to lower standards in order to guarantee that jobs will go to schedule classes in order to fulfill quotas. This lowers the quality of the work force or student body. It also creates resentment among the classes which are denied jobs or school entrances in favor of the scheduled classes. As a result instead of eliminating the caste system current government policies in India tend to expand and in entrench the caste system.