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

Opponents of affirmative action argue that government set-asides should have lasted only 10 years after independence in 1947, not the six decades that they have. In the workplace and in colleges, affirmative action programs breed resentment, the critics say, because they dilute merit-based hiring that should, in theory, reward the most qualified job candidates, regardless of caste.

Creating quotas for the private sector would be a "disaster," said Shiv Khera, an author who opposes set-asides on the grounds that they call too much attention to caste. "We shouldn't even be asking what caste people are."

He also said that affirmative action will not fix what he sees as the roots of caste divisions: deeply impoverished public schools that don't teach English or even have enough funding for up-to-date books. The government should fix those schools, Khera said, "not worry about the private sector," a view echoed by others.

Still, affirmative action has helped pull tens of thousands of people out of abject poverty and into universities and government jobs, while creating a small Dalit middle class that many hope will expand along with India's economy. It also has given rise to a new kind of struggle, as other low-ranking groups known here as the "backward castes" protest that their government designation isn't "low-caste enough" to make them eligible for job set-asides, Khera said.

"That just shows you that set-asides don't work," Khera added. "It just makes the people more aware of caste and who's getting what job and why."

But inside the interview room, the young professionals applying for jobs with Temp Solutions said they would have never gotten an education without set-asides. The interviews were held at the Manuski Center, part of a Buddhist monastery. Hundreds of thousands of Dalits have converted to Buddhism in an attempt to escape the caste system.

Sitting in a circle as they waited to hear whether they would get jobs, Kamble and the other students talked about the often harrowing discrimination they faced.

"I knew there was hatred in the world and in India, when as a child I watched some upper castes refuse to sell my mother lentils and rice in the nicer part of the market because we were 'dirty,' and from a backward caste," said Vivek Kumar Katara, 22, who has a master's degree in social work focusing on helping the mentally ill. Without quotas, Katara said, "I honestly don't know if professors would have even let me sit in the same class as upper castes."

After awarding jobs to Kamble, Katara and others, Thevar said they would be expected to return to India once their visas expired and to help hire from their own communities.

"It will be our responsibility to tell the world about caste and fight it," Kamble said as a group of chosen candidates raced downstairs to call or tell their parents, who were anxiously waiting. She is to work for a child social services agency in Philadelphia.

Pacing downstairs, Kamble's gray-haired father, Valmik, put his thick, callused hands over his eyes and wept when he found out his daughter would be working for a major company. "I'm so happy and so proud," he said, hugging her. "I never dreamt of such a thing for our family."