A 'Broken People' in Booming India

An Inherited Burden

By virtue of birth, some castes inherit wealth; the Dalits inherit debt.

Caste often determines Indians' spouses, friends, residence and, most important, occupation -- part of a Hindu belief that people inherit their stations in life based on the sins and good deeds of past lives.

Some Indians believe that the spread of capitalism in urban areas has in some ways dissolved caste by creating new occupations and eliminating obsolete ones. For instance, with the growing use of flush toilets in Indian cities, the disposal of human waste, once a job for Dalits, is now done with a simple pull of a lever.

In booming evening bazaars in Mumbai and New Delhi, lower castes sell cellphones, leather tennis shoes and grooming kits from small shops and curbside pushcarts alongside higher castes, with everyone "in a capitalist rush to make money," said Prasad, the writer. "A lower-caste businessman may even enjoy an evening cigarette with a higher caste, completely taboo even 50 years ago."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently compared India's caste system to apartheid in South Africa, calling it not just prejudice but "a blot on humanity."

Critics say that such statements are simply meant to garner votes from lower castes and that any gains made by Dalits have been marginal.

"India is not a true democracy," said Anup Srivastava, a researcher with the People's Vigilance Commission on Human Rights in Varanasi who is investigating complaints filed by Dalits about discrimination among neighbors, in schools, at hospitals and at work. "The country is independent. But the people aren't. How can there be a democracy when there are still people known as untouchables who face daily discrimination?"

Experts say more and more Hindus are rejecting their religion because it sanctions caste. Last month in Mumbai, thousands of Dalits converted to Buddhism, which in posters and newspaper ads describes itself as a "caste-free faith."

Meanwhile, the Dalits have made political gains. Last month, a Dalit woman, Mayawati Kumari, was elected to the top post in Uttar Pradesh in a landslide victory in which she was able to garner support across castes, including from high-caste Brahmins. Her election was as significant to the Dalits as John F. Kennedy's presidency was to America's Irish Catholics, many caste experts here say.

The resistance to dissolving caste comes from a deep-rooted fear among the elite that economic power will be taken from them and given to the poor. To the extent that caste creates informal labor unions, the rejection of caste would effectively destroy those unions in a country where people far outnumber jobs.

For nearly 60 years, affirmative action programs have offered limited help to Dalits and other low castes. Those programs have long been highly controversial, and tainted by politics.

In what has been dubbed "the race to the bottom," a powerful group of shepherds in Rajasthan state demanded this month to be "socially downgraded" so they could be entitled to government and education programs. The shepherds, known as the Gujjars, blocked roads and train routes and burned down businesses. Indian army troops and police clashed with the Gujjars, leaving 23 people dead before the government promised to consider their demands.