State of India’s caste system: views differ
In the past week, both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have featured vastly different takes on the caste system in India. The Washington Post‘s headline: A ‘Broken People’ in Booming India Low-Caste Dalits Still Face Prejudice, Grinding Poverty The Wall Street Journal‘s headline: Caste Away India’s high-tech revolution helps ‘Untouchables’ rise … ...
In the past week, both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have featured vastly different takes on the caste system in India.
In the past week, both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have featured vastly different takes on the caste system in India.
The Washington Post‘s headline:
A ‘Broken People’ in Booming India
Low-Caste Dalits Still Face Prejudice, Grinding Poverty
The Wall Street Journal‘s headline:
Caste Away
India’s high-tech revolution helps ‘Untouchables’ rise …
The Post is more pessimistic, saying “India may be booming, but not for those who occupy the lowest rung of society here.” It mentions the case of a Dalit woman (a member of the lowest caste, the “untouchables”) whose two children died after a health center refused to help them.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal takes an optimistic tone, saying “… India’s rapid economic expansion—and its booming high-tech sector—are beginning to chip away at the historical system that reserved well-paying jobs for upper castes and menial jobs for Dalits.” It profiles the story of a Dalit man who is now a software developer and earns more in one month than his father did in a year.
So who’s right? It’s probably too early to tell, but one factor is sure to make a difference in the outcome: access to education. Many Dalits don’t get a decent chance at a quality education. Affirmative action plans, which have been in place for nearly 60 years, can help them get into universities, but if they aren’t academically prepared in the first place and have weak English skills, then it’s hard to compete.
Probably the biggest challenge, though, is lack of leadership. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the caste system “a blot on humanity.” But, unfortunately, the rest of the country’s elite doesn’t seem to have made egalitarianism a priority. As one publisher of books on caste says, “There’s not even the pretension to fight caste. It’s not trendy or a Bollywood star’s cause célèbre to say you care about the working-man untouchable.”
More from Foreign Policy


No, the World Is Not Multipolar
The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes.


America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.


America Can’t Stop China’s Rise
And it should stop trying.


The Morality of Ukraine’s War Is Very Murky
The ethical calculations are less clear than you might think.