Data from NSSO 2004-05 and Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18 show that the education level of those belonging to OBC is now similar to General Category young men in urban India.
Researchers mapped residents from over 26,000 villages to find that nearly 70 years on, little has changed in caste-religion-based spatial organisation in rural Karnataka.
Keshav Sitaram Thackeray ‘Prabodhankar’ had joined BR Ambedkar in a movement to allow ‘untouchable’ to worship alongside Brahmins during Ganesh utsav in Mumbai.
At least 236 Valmikis of Karera village had converted to Buddhism on 14 October, but police have now lodged an FIR on grounds that all of it was a rumour to stoke caste violence.
The family of the Hathras woman who died Tuesday after a brutal gang rape says nobody would have dared to do such a thing had she belonged to ‘Thakur or Pandit community’.
More than a century after Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj introduced caste-based quota in Kolhapur, the Maratha community in Maharashtra is fighting a legal battle to save reservation.
The govt has boosted spending to revive the economy and launched job schemes for those returning to villages. But the benefits aren’t always percolating down to the lowest castes.
It is being said that the Ram Mandir will be more significant than the Vatican of Rome and the Mecca of Saudi Arabia. But will it change the status of Dalits and Shudras?
The dynamics between Europe and Russia have gone so south that mending fences looks like an uphill task—even as the US swings between sanctions and olive branches.
Centre for Science and Environment in new report makes case for rationalising GST on waste material, saying most informal operators can’t afford high tax & it also hinders recycling.
Standing up to America is usually not a personal risk for a leader in India. Any suggestions of foreign pressure unites India behind who they see as leading them in that fight.
Can journalism now go beyond casteism and actually focus on the economically backward strata of the society? The media can play a huge role in taking India away from caste-based differentiation and towards equal opportunities to new classes of suppressed society, such as economically backward, low access to infrastructure, LGBTQ, etc. Instead the media just keeps fanning the flames in the caste vs. caste debate and then writes articles about how the Indian society is divided.
According to author’s GC is 40%. Take away minorities then Hindu GC is only 20% of overall population. Take away some large castes like Marathas, Gujjars etc from that 20% Hindu GC then it could well that in most states only 5-10% could be actual upper castes. So this 5-10% has access to 50% of seats in govt desk jobs and govt college admissions. i feel the message from some commenters is to keep the white collar jobs as an upper caste preserve as they feel they are best suited for it.
I am not sure if GC in the survey included Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other minorities as they cannot avail of reservations. If it did include them, the survey should publish breakdown in GC between upper caste Hindus and the various minorities.
Just yesterday The Hindu concluded three day series report that said entirely opposite. I figure that you must have read that and came up with way to counter.
Such an amazing craftsmanship with data! Just yesterday The Hindu concluded three day series report that said entirely opposite. I figure that you must have read that and came up with way to counter. Shame.
The caste gap is being closed at the cost of livelihoods of the so-called upper castes. The so-called lower castes are being given the traditional jobs of the so-called upper castes while the upper caste are now doing what was earlier the job domain of the lower castes. At the same time, the legal protections available to the lower castes are not available to the upper castes thereby rendering them vulnerable to exploitation and oppression. In short, while the original caste system aimed to create harmony between various socio-economic groups, the current system aims to take away that harmony and empower the former lower castes at the cost of the former upper castes. The Indian government for example, provides free education to SC/ST from school till university level but has no scheme for poor people from the upper caste who are then forced to live in poverty all their life. Then social scientists and government wonders why there is no social harmony. It is painful to see one’s community members descending into poverty because the State has deemed that they do not deserve any support just because their forefathers were supposedly privileged and other community members rising at their cost. You cannot artificially induce social harmony by robbing Peter and make him poor to pay Paul and make him rich and powerful.
Make use of EWS quota. You have no reason to feel bitter now. Besides EWS cutoff is similar to OBC cutoff marks in admissions. Note that the 10% quota for upper castes is way more than upper caste numbers in the population.
Data shows 10% of GC in elementary occupations. i am hard pressed to believe that those in GC esp upper castes would be street vendors or sanitary workers. Need better and more detailed data behind the interpretation of the charts.
OBC creamy layer (high income and well landed family) cannot get reservation benefits. Only non-creamy layer falls under 27% OBC quota.
There are fee waivers in academic central govt institutions for economically backward students.
For instance in IIT and NIT which are engineering institutions:
Students whose parents earn less than Rs 1 lakh can get full remission of the fee.
If the family earns between Rs 1 lakh and 5 lakh per annum, they can get a remission of two-third of the fee.
The point regarding “harmony amongst socio-economic groups” with the original caste system – but was the caste system beneficial as far as literacy and job mobility was concerned?
In earlier centuries did the caste system help in improving the literacy of the lower castes? No. Very few among these groups would have been able to read/write even in Indian languages (leave Sanskrit) until the British arrived. Education in whatever form it existed was only for the elites until then and it was mostly a “religious” type of education – be it Vedic or Islamic, overseen by the kings and the ruling classes.
The literacy rate in India was a mere 3.2% in 1872, It was the British who democratised education and set up schools and colleges open to all. Literacy levels improved thus to 15% in 1951. With reservations, it is not just about literacy but also about the level of education – so now lower castes have got better chances at job mobility, they have the chance to do white collar work now.
Clearly decades of reservation has made minimal impact. Scrap reservation policies and instead provide equitable opportunities for lower income strata of people rather than on the basis of caste. Caste based reservations’ benefits have been reaped by select few government employees and their families generation after generation.
It’s interesting that “sectoral employment” graph shows general category takes 50% of the jobs, which seems disproportionate to their population.
Also note that in “percent share of occupations” graph, there is not much difference show between GC and OBC’s across all occupations. But if you take actual population numbers of reservation categories ( pie chart for each skill) I am sure it will show a totally different picture – for instance number of OBC’s in elementary occupations will be way more than GC because of population proportion.
EWS quota satisfies the need for those with low income from upper castes. Government has created 8 lakhs annual family income limit to avail of this quota so there is no need of an income based reservation at all.
It was indeed a brilliantly put together series of articles. Completely unbiased and based on facts and data. Props to the writer for not subverting the data to make a false narrative.
Till now I not able to make a connection between Social Backwardness of OBC caste with SCs and STs and the superfoolish concept of Bahujana …….In my state OBC dominated castes like Yadav , Kurmi , Baniya , Ansaris are very much emopowerd (socio economic) than SCs but I always listen their combined social awtar called Bahujana …..We need to Bycott these narratives
P.S :- I’m Brahmin
Creating a false impression with just Using urban data. The real india is in rural villages where more than 70% live. This study completely ignores them.
No it does not, first of all these surveys are conducted at national level including every city and village. If you study the article you’ll also find information regarding agriculture, plant workers and other fields, so kindly cast away your biased specs.
EDUCATION can break down the caste system …………… Good job the Print
Can journalism now go beyond casteism and actually focus on the economically backward strata of the society? The media can play a huge role in taking India away from caste-based differentiation and towards equal opportunities to new classes of suppressed society, such as economically backward, low access to infrastructure, LGBTQ, etc. Instead the media just keeps fanning the flames in the caste vs. caste debate and then writes articles about how the Indian society is divided.
According to author’s GC is 40%. Take away minorities then Hindu GC is only 20% of overall population. Take away some large castes like Marathas, Gujjars etc from that 20% Hindu GC then it could well that in most states only 5-10% could be actual upper castes. So this 5-10% has access to 50% of seats in govt desk jobs and govt college admissions. i feel the message from some commenters is to keep the white collar jobs as an upper caste preserve as they feel they are best suited for it.
Well done . Very good analysis.
They should have put the population %, how 15 are doing so well…and over represented anad overpaid.
I am not sure if GC in the survey included Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other minorities as they cannot avail of reservations. If it did include them, the survey should publish breakdown in GC between upper caste Hindus and the various minorities.
Well explained. Disparity between upper class and lower class remains.
But most of these reservation benefits in education n emplyement are used by urban population
Just yesterday The Hindu concluded three day series report that said entirely opposite. I figure that you must have read that and came up with way to counter.
Such an amazing craftsmanship with data! Just yesterday The Hindu concluded three day series report that said entirely opposite. I figure that you must have read that and came up with way to counter. Shame.
The caste gap is being closed at the cost of livelihoods of the so-called upper castes. The so-called lower castes are being given the traditional jobs of the so-called upper castes while the upper caste are now doing what was earlier the job domain of the lower castes. At the same time, the legal protections available to the lower castes are not available to the upper castes thereby rendering them vulnerable to exploitation and oppression. In short, while the original caste system aimed to create harmony between various socio-economic groups, the current system aims to take away that harmony and empower the former lower castes at the cost of the former upper castes. The Indian government for example, provides free education to SC/ST from school till university level but has no scheme for poor people from the upper caste who are then forced to live in poverty all their life. Then social scientists and government wonders why there is no social harmony. It is painful to see one’s community members descending into poverty because the State has deemed that they do not deserve any support just because their forefathers were supposedly privileged and other community members rising at their cost. You cannot artificially induce social harmony by robbing Peter and make him poor to pay Paul and make him rich and powerful.
Make use of EWS quota. You have no reason to feel bitter now. Besides EWS cutoff is similar to OBC cutoff marks in admissions. Note that the 10% quota for upper castes is way more than upper caste numbers in the population.
Data shows 10% of GC in elementary occupations. i am hard pressed to believe that those in GC esp upper castes would be street vendors or sanitary workers. Need better and more detailed data behind the interpretation of the charts.
OBC creamy layer (high income and well landed family) cannot get reservation benefits. Only non-creamy layer falls under 27% OBC quota.
There are fee waivers in academic central govt institutions for economically backward students.
For instance in IIT and NIT which are engineering institutions:
Students whose parents earn less than Rs 1 lakh can get full remission of the fee.
If the family earns between Rs 1 lakh and 5 lakh per annum, they can get a remission of two-third of the fee.
The point regarding “harmony amongst socio-economic groups” with the original caste system – but was the caste system beneficial as far as literacy and job mobility was concerned?
In earlier centuries did the caste system help in improving the literacy of the lower castes? No. Very few among these groups would have been able to read/write even in Indian languages (leave Sanskrit) until the British arrived. Education in whatever form it existed was only for the elites until then and it was mostly a “religious” type of education – be it Vedic or Islamic, overseen by the kings and the ruling classes.
The literacy rate in India was a mere 3.2% in 1872, It was the British who democratised education and set up schools and colleges open to all. Literacy levels improved thus to 15% in 1951. With reservations, it is not just about literacy but also about the level of education – so now lower castes have got better chances at job mobility, they have the chance to do white collar work now.
Clearly decades of reservation has made minimal impact. Scrap reservation policies and instead provide equitable opportunities for lower income strata of people rather than on the basis of caste. Caste based reservations’ benefits have been reaped by select few government employees and their families generation after generation.
It’s interesting that “sectoral employment” graph shows general category takes 50% of the jobs, which seems disproportionate to their population.
Also note that in “percent share of occupations” graph, there is not much difference show between GC and OBC’s across all occupations. But if you take actual population numbers of reservation categories ( pie chart for each skill) I am sure it will show a totally different picture – for instance number of OBC’s in elementary occupations will be way more than GC because of population proportion.
EWS quota satisfies the need for those with low income from upper castes. Government has created 8 lakhs annual family income limit to avail of this quota so there is no need of an income based reservation at all.
It was indeed a brilliantly put together series of articles. Completely unbiased and based on facts and data. Props to the writer for not subverting the data to make a false narrative.
It is impossible to enslave a educated person
Till now I not able to make a connection between Social Backwardness of OBC caste with SCs and STs and the superfoolish concept of Bahujana …….In my state OBC dominated castes like Yadav , Kurmi , Baniya , Ansaris are very much emopowerd (socio economic) than SCs but I always listen their combined social awtar called Bahujana …..We need to Bycott these narratives
P.S :- I’m Brahmin
Creating a false impression with just Using urban data. The real india is in rural villages where more than 70% live. This study completely ignores them.
No it does not, first of all these surveys are conducted at national level including every city and village. If you study the article you’ll also find information regarding agriculture, plant workers and other fields, so kindly cast away your biased specs.
EDUCATION can break down the caste system …………… Good job the Print
This is such a wonderfully researched article with statistics. Good job Print