India's Lower Castes Seek Social Progress In Global Job Market

Michael Thevar, who recruits lower-caste workers for temporary jobs, speaks to Pratibha Valmik Kamble, right, and Vivek Kumar Katara in Pune, India. (By Emily Wax -- The Washington Post)

An estimated 86 percent of technology workers at multinationals and large Indian outsourcing firms come from upper castes or wealthy middle castes, according to a study released in August 2006 by the government and activist groups.

At the same time, the vast majority of Indians living in the United States and Britain come from upper castes, partly because they have better access to work and education visas and can afford expensive plane tickets.

"Caste should not be globalized, and as India rises economically, that is the real fear," said Thevar. "I think this is the moment in India for us all to stand up and tell the world that we are capable. There is no longer such a thing as untouchable in the world."

Thevar and Dalit activists have even lobbied the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, with whom they see common cause and a shared experience in discrimination.

Congress has taken notice, and last month passed a resolution calling for the United States to work with India to address the problem of untouchability by "encouraging U.S. businesses and other U.S. organizations working in India to take every possible measure to ensure Dalits are included and are not discriminated against in their programming."

"It is now time for this Congress to speak out about this ancient and particularly abhorrent form of persecution and segregation -- even if it is occurring in a country considered to be one of America's closest allies," Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said during a speech last spring on the House floor.

Franks went on to call Dalits "one of the most oppressed peoples on Earth."

The 2006 study found that public health workers refuse to visit 33 percent of Dalit villages, while mail is not delivered to the homes of 24 percent of Dalits.

The reason for the neglect, the study said, is that some in the upper castes believe lower-caste people are dirty and lack dignity in their labor as latrine cleaners, rickshaw drivers, butchers, herders and barbers.

The debate on affirmative action in India is similar to the one in the United States in terms of discrimination and ways to end it. But in India, those who experience discrimination, especially in rural areas, are the majority and are ruled by an elite.

The issue here is complicated by India's turbulent history of race, class and caste. Centuries-old customs of arranged marriages and inherited professions perpetuate caste divisions, which are further reinforced by some interpretations of Hinduism, India's dominant religion, which sanctions the caste system.

The country's education system also hardens caste. Lower castes largely attend public schools, which teach local languages, while private schools attended by upper castes teach English -- the most important criterion to be hired at a call center, where young employees spend their nights helping customers phoning from the United States.