caste and gender discrimination essay

Title VII and Caste Discrimination

• Guha Krishnamurthi
• Charanya Krishnaswami
• See full issue

Introduction

In the summer of 2020, a report of workplace discrimination roiled Silicon Valley and the tech world. 1 An employee at Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco), known only as John Doe, alleged he had suffered an insidious pattern of discrimination — paid less, cut out of opportunities, marginalized by coworkers — based on his caste. 2 Consequently, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) brought suit against Cisco, alleging that the employee’s managers and (thus) Cisco had engaged in unlawful employment discrimination. 3 Doe is a Dalit Indian. 4 Dalits were once referred to as “untouchables” under the South Asian caste system; they suffered and continue to suffer unthinkable caste-based oppression in India and elsewhere in the Subcontinent. 5 Doe claims that two managers, also from India but belonging to a dominant caste, 6 denigrated him based on his Dalit background, denied him promotions, and retaliated against him when he complained of the discriminatory treatment. 7 Thereafter, a group of thirty women engineers who identify as Dalit and who work for tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Cisco shared an anonymous statement with the Washington Post explaining the caste bias they have faced in the workplace and calling for the tech industry to be better. 8

While Doe’s and the thirty women engineers’ allegations of caste discrimination raise novel questions about the application of civil rights statutes to workplace discrimination on the basis of caste, these allegations echo a tale as old as time: the millennia-old structure of caste discrimination and the systemic oppression of Dalits, which has been described as a system of “apartheid,” 9 the “[c]onstancy of the [b]ottom [r]ung,” 10 and reduction to the “lowest of the low,” 11 a fixed position that followed Doe and these thirty women engineers halfway around the world. DFEH’s case based on Doe’s allegations is still at the complaint stage, with a long road of discovery surely ahead. Other claims of caste discrimination, including by the thirty women engineers, have not yet been brought to court. Thus, for all these cases, a preliminary legal question beckons: Is a claim of caste discrimination cognizable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? 12 We argue that the answer is yes.

This Essay continues in two Parts. In Part I, we explain the basic contours and characteristics of the South Asian caste system and detail the reach and impact of caste in the United States. In Part II, we explain how caste discrimination is, as a legal matter, cognizable under Title VII as discrimination based on “race,” “religion,” or “national origin,” following the Supreme Court’s teaching in Bostock v. Clayton County , 13 in which the Court found that sexual orientation discrimination is a type of sex discrimination. 14 We briefly conclude, contending that, despite the coverage of caste discrimination under federal law, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or Congress should provide further clear guidance — and in doing so consider other kinds of discrimination throughout the world that should be explicitly prohibited in the United States. While addressing claims of caste discrimination through Title VII enforcement is just one of many steps that must be taken to eradicate caste-based discrimination, naming caste as a prohibited basis on which to discriminate has the added value of increasing public consciousness about a phenomenon that, at least in U.S. workplaces, remains invisible to many.

I. Caste Discrimination and Its Reach

A. brief description of the south asian caste system.

Caste is a structure of social stratification that is characterized by hereditary transmission of a set of practices, often including occupation, ritual practice, and social interaction. 15 There are various social systems around the world that have been described as “caste” systems. 16 Here, we will use “caste” to refer to the South Asian caste system that operates both in South Asia and in the diaspora. 17 As we will see, the South Asian caste system is a hierarchical system that involves discrimination and perpetuates oppression.

The South Asian caste system covers around 1.8 billion people, and it is instantiated in different ways through different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups and geographies. 18 As a result, it can be difficult to say anything categorical about the caste system. Thus, our description identifies its broad contours and characteristics.

The caste system is rooted in the indigenous traditions, practices, and religions of South Asia. 19 We can generally refer to those traditions, practices, and religions as “Hinduism.” The term Hinduism, as we use it, is an umbrella term for a diversity of traditions, practices, and religions that may share no common thread except for geographical provenance. So defined, the term Hinduism is capacious. We separately identify Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. As a matter of convention, Christianity and Islam are not generally considered or labeled indigenous religions of the Subcontinent, but the forms of those religions in the Subcontinent have distinctive features. 20

The caste system is an amalgamation of at least two different systems: varna and jati . 21 Varna is a four-part stratification made up of brahmana , kshatriya , vaishya , and shudra classes. 22 These classes have been characterized as the priestly class, the ruler-warrior class, the merchant class, and the laborer class, respectively. 23 There is implicitly another varna — those excluded from this four-part hierarchy. 24 They are sometimes described as belonging to the panchama varna (literally, the “fifth varna ”). 25 The panchama varna is treated as synonymous with the term “untouchable” 26 — now called “Dalit.” 27

Alongside the varna system is the jati system. Jati refers to more specific groupings, and in the actual practice of the caste system, jati is much more significant. 28 There are thousands of jati -s, and jati identity incorporates, among other things, traditional occupation, linguistic identity, geographical identity, and religious identity. 29 Similar to varna , there is a large underclass in the jati system made up of many jati -s. Those include jati -s based on certain traditional occupations viewed as “unclean,” like agricultural workers, scavengers, cobblers, and street sweepers. 30 They also include certain tribal identities, called “Adivasis.” 31 The relationship between varna and jati is complex. At various junctures, people have attempted to place jati -s within a varna , to create a unified system of sorts. This attempted fusion inevitably continues the “tradition of dispute over whether these two hierarchies coincide, and which is the more fundamental.” 32

The foundations of the caste system are nebulous at best. The system may have had some grounding in primitive racial, color, ethnic, or linguistic distinctions, but that is unclear. 33 Nevertheless, the resulting caste system can be characterized with at least the following core traits: (1) hereditary transmission and endogamy; (2) strong relationships with religious and social practice and interaction; (3) relationships with concepts of “purity” and “pollution”; and (4) hierarchical ordering, including through perceived superiority of dominant castes over oppressed castes, hierarchy of occupation, and discrimination and stigmatization of oppressed castes. 34

As observed, the caste system is rooted in Hinduism. 35 And it continues to live in modern Hindu practice. 36 Of course, many Hindus are committed to the eradication of caste and the belief that true Hindu belief eschews (and has always eschewed) the evils of caste. 37 But modern Hindu practice continues to recognize and entrench caste in religious and social practice and interaction, and people suffer oppression and discrimination on the basis of caste. 38 The tentacles of caste oppression extend beyond modern Hindu practice as well: in South Asia, caste distinction and oppression manifests in Christian, Muslim, Sikh, and Jain communities, among others. 39 As a detailed report on caste by the Dalit-led research and advocacy group Equality Labs has observed, “[t]his entire [caste discrimination] system is enforced by violence and maintained by one of the oldest, most persistent cultures of impunity throughout South Asia, most notably in India, where despite the contemporary illegality of the system, it has persisted and thrived for 2,500 years.” 40 There is no doubt that Hinduism provided the foundation for caste discrimination and oppression and that modern Hindu practice continues to perpetuate it. But the insidiousness of caste discrimination is such that it sprouts and thrives even when divorced from its doctrinal home of Hinduism, and even when there is claimed caste eradication.

Regarding caste hierarchy, the ordering is complex, incomplete, and controversial. There is no lineal ordering, and any putative ordering is not definitive. Brahmana are generally described as occupying the top of the proverbial pyramid, though kshatriya and vaishya communities often claim divine lineage, and do not necessarily recognize any so-called brahmana supremacy. 41 These three varna are usually understood to form the core of the so-called “upper,” or dominant, castes. 42 Those of the four named varna -s have historically been ranked as “superior” to those of the fifth ( panchama ) varna — the “untouchables” or Dalits. 43 Similarly clear is that those categorized as brahmana , kshatriya , and vaishya have historically subjugated the shudra varna . 44

Of course, these hierarchical comparisons are entirely bigoted and without merit. 45 As a result of them, Dalits, Shudras, and others have experienced and continue to experience horrific oppression at the hands of dominant castes — what Equality Labs has described as a “system of Caste apartheid,” with oppressed castes “having to live in segregated ghettoes, being banned from places of worship, and being denied access to schools and other public amenities including water and roads.” 46

Oppressed-caste status impacts everything in one’s life. 47 It can impact one’s access to religious and social institutions — for example, Dalits and Shudras may be barred from entering temples, mosques, gurdwaras, and churches. 48 It may mean that they cannot eat in certain restaurants or shop at certain stores. It may mean that they are not allowed to marry people of different caste lineage 49 — and will be killed if they try. 50 It may mean that they cannot eat in certain people’s houses. 51 It may mean that they are not even allowed to cremate or bury their dead. 52 Moreover, oppressed-caste individuals have often been subjected to hate-based violence, with no genuine access to jus-tice. 53 And, as a political matter, individuals of oppressed castes have often been denied meaningful representation. 54

Consequently, South Asian governments have attempted to address these problems, at least nominally, through prohibitions on discrimination 55 and through “reservation” — systems that seek to uplift these oppressed communities through uses of quotas in education and employment. 56 These actions have faced continued opposition from members of dominant castes. 57 And, as a result, Dalits, Adivasis, and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) who obtain reservation are often discrimi-nated against as potential beneficiaries of reservation, even though res-ervation was meant to rectify and address millennia of caste-based oppression.

Finally, and relevantly, the South Asian caste system has traveled beyond the borders of the Subcontinent. The South Asian diaspora observes caste identity, and there is consequent caste discrimination. 58 As Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a leader of the Dalit liberation movement and author of the Indian Constitution, stated, caste discrimination and oppression “is a local problem, but one capable of much wider mischief, for ‘as long as caste in India does exist, Hindus will hardly intermarry or have any social intercourse with outsiders; and if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem.’” 59

B. The Impact of Caste in the United States

The immigration of South Asians to the United States has come in waves, each of which has changed the caste dynamics of the population. While today the population is viewed as a monolith, from the earliest days of South Asian migration, dominant-caste members of the diaspora sought to differentiate themselves from the oppressed others. 60 Given dominant-caste members’ fears that crossing an ocean would cause them to lose their caste status, the earliest migrants to the United States were those who had nothing to lose: predominantly oppressed-caste and non-Hindu people. 61

At the turn of the twentieth century, xenophobic backlash against East and South Asian immigrants led to new laws forbidding nonwhite immigrants from accessing citizenship, with heart-wrenching consequences for South Asian immigrants who had forged lives and families in the country. 62 In 1923, Bhagat Singh Thind, a dominant-caste immigrant born in Amritsar, Punjab, “sought to make common cause with his upper-caste counterparts in America,” 63 effectively arguing his ethnic background and caste laid a claim to whiteness in his adopted coun-try — claims, as Equality Labs notes, the caste-oppressed could never make. 64

Today, there are nearly 5.4 million South Asians in the United States. 65 From 2010 to 2017, the South Asian population grew by a “staggering” forty percent. 66 The first wave of modern migration from the Subcontinent took place in the wake of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, 67 which removed discriminatory national origin-based quotas, and which established the modern immigration system based on work and family ties. 68 Equality Labs notes the majority of South Asian immigrants who came to the United States after the 1965 reform were “professionals and students[,] . . . largely ‘upper’ Caste, upper class, the most educated, and c[oming] from the newly independent Indian cities.” 69 Oppressed-caste people, by contrast, having had at that point just limited access to educational and professional opportunities, came in smaller numbers. 70 The Immigration Act of 1990, 71 which liberalized employment-based migration, further opened up pathways for South Asian immigration to the United States. 72 This wave, according to Equality Labs, included a growing number of immigrants from historically oppressed castes who, through resistance movements and reforms in access to education and other opportunities, were increasingly able to harness sufficient mobility to migrate. 73 Even still, according to a 2003 study from the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, only 1.5% of Indian immigrants were members of Dalit or other oppressed castes, while more than 90% were from high or dominant castes. 74

Yet, contrary to the fears of the earliest South Asian immigrants to the United States, the fact of one’s caste is not shed by the crossing of an ocean. As South Asian immigrants have integrated into the United States in increasing numbers, caste discrimination among the diaspora’s members threatens to entrench itself as well. This caste discrimination is complicated and perhaps obscured by a second racial caste system in the United States: one which situates South Asians generally as an in-between “middle caste,” relatively privileged and sometimes conferred “model minority” status, yet still systematically excluded from the highest echelons of power and discriminated against on the basis of race and national origin. 75

Given how entrenched and ubiquitous caste oppression still is across South Asia, and how programmed and hereditary discriminatory attitudes can be, it is easy to imagine how a subtler, more insidious form of caste discrimination has replicated here. As the South Asian community in the United States has grown, so have, for example, identity groups organized around linguistic and caste identities, 76 informally entrenching caste divisions among South Asians in the United States. The only study of which we are aware concerning caste identity and discrimination in the United States, conducted by Equality Labs, found that, of 1,200 people surveyed, over half of Dalits in the United States reported experiencing caste-based derogatory remarks or jokes against them, and over a quarter reported experiencing physical assault based on their caste. 77

Of particular relevance to this paper, an astonishing two-thirds of Dalit respondents to the survey reported experiencing some form of discrimination in the workplace. 78 The workplace is one of the primary areas where caste discrimination manifests — perhaps because caste itself is historically predicated in part on one’s work, the notion that one’s birth consigns one to a certain occupation, and concomitantly a certain status and fate.

In the U.S. tech sector, which has a large South Asian workforce, 79 complaints of caste discrimination have been particularly rampant. Earlier this month, a group of thirty women engineers who identify as Dalit and who work for tech companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Cisco issued a public statement to the Washington Post stating they had faced caste bias in the U.S. tech sector. 80 Other Dalit employees have described their fears of being “outed” in the workplace, as well as subtle attempts to discern their caste based on so-called “caste locator[s],” such as the neighborhoods where they grew up, whether they eat meat, or what religion they practice. 81 The risks of caste discrimination against oppressed-caste employees are exacerbated in professions with high numbers of South Asians, where programmed attitudes about caste superiority and inferiority can easily take hold. With this subtler, more insidious discrimination taking root, we must determine what recourse exists in the law to combat it.

II. Title VII’s Coverage of Caste

To answer the legal question, we first look at the statute. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. 82 Thus, for caste discrimination to be cognizable under Title VII, it must be cognizable as discrimination based on at least one of these grounds. The challenge is to determine which if any of these grounds encompasses caste discrimination.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County , our determination whether caste discrimination is cognizable under any of these grounds is governed by the text of the statute. 83 Title VII makes it “unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 84

The first question in determining coverage under Title VII is whether caste is in fact simply reducible to one of these categories. If not, the next question is whether caste discrimination satisfies the but-for causation test with respect to one of these categories. 85 As the Bostock Court explains:

[But-for] causation is established whenever a particular outcome would not have happened “but for” the purported cause. In other words, a but-for test directs us to change one thing at a time and see if the outcome changes. If it does, we have found a but-for cause. This can be a sweeping standard. Often, events have multiple but-for causes. So, for example, if a car accident occurred both because the defend-ant ran a red light and because the plaintiff failed to signal his turn at the intersection, we might call each a but-for cause of the collision. When it comes to Title VII, the adoption of the traditional but-for causation standard means a defendant cannot avoid liability just by citing some other factor that contributed to the challenged employment decision. So long as the plaintiff’s sex was one but-for cause of that decision, that is enough to trigger the law. 86

Finally, we can ask whether caste is “conceptually” dependent on one of these categories. 87 For all these questions, we may consider the original expected applications of the statute, but we are not limited to those expected applications. 88 Rather, we are led by the fair and reasonable meaning of the plain text, even if that goes beyond the expected applications. 89

As a preliminary determination, we can remove “sex” from the picture. Whatever caste discrimination is, it is self-evidently not on the basis of sex. At a first level, caste discrimination is not simply reducible to sex. Further, caste discrimination can be levied upon actors regardless of their sex, and without any appeal to their sex. Consequently, it meets neither the but-for causation test nor the conceptual dependence test. Of course, a person may experience discrimination based on caste and sex — for example, a Dalit woman may experience harassment based on both features of their identity. That raises questions of mixed motivation, addressed below. 90 But discrimination on the basis of caste alone does not necessarily implicate questions of sex.

That leaves national origin, race, color, and religion for our further investigation. We consider each in turn.

A. National Origin

We first contend that there is a plausible argument that caste discrimination constitutes discrimination on the basis of national origin.

Importantly, discrimination based on being South Asian is cognizable as discrimination based on “national origin.” 91 This may at first glance seem like an odd conclusion, since South Asia is not itself a nation. On this point, the EEOC explains: “National origin discrimination involves treating people (applicants or employees) unfavorably because they are from a particular country or part of the world, because of ethnicity or accent, or because they appear to be of a certain ethnic background (even if they are not).” 92 On this account, discrimination based on South Asian identity is clearly national-origin discrimination.

That said, straightforwardly, caste identity is not simply reducible to being South Asian. It is a further qualification of one’s South Asian identity.

In addition, the but-for test can be used to argue that caste discrimination is a form of national-origin discrimination, because it would not occur “but for” one’s national origin. Specifically, but for the employee having an ancestor who had a particular caste identity defined and dictated by South Asian culture and practice, the employee would not have been discriminated against. More simply, but for the employee having a particular South Asian heritage (that is, their involuntary membership in a South Asian caste hierarchy), the employee would not have been discriminated against. So that is national-origin discrimination.

And on the conceptual test: one cannot understand the employee’s caste identity without appeal to certain features of South Asian culture — thus, caste identity is conceptually dependent on South Asian identity and is therefore national-origin discrimination.

What exactly “race” is, and how “races” are properly defined, is an almost impenetrably difficult question. 93 There are compelling accounts of the caste system as, at its genesis, based on some variety of racial categorization, even if primitive. 94 And there are other accounts that claim that race is orthogonal to caste. 95 Resolving the question of whether caste is in fact reducible to or based on race would prove controversial, and so finding caste discrimination is racial discrimination because of caste’s relationship to race is an equally controversial proposition. Consequently, here, we do not pursue that type of argument.

There is however another sense in which caste may be simply reducible to race. If “race” means something like a group distinguished by ancestry, 96 then caste will select a particular “race,” because caste is a hereditary system that relates to ancestry. 97 The EEOC has suggested such an understanding of “race”: “Title VII does not contain a definition of ‘race.’ Race discrimination includes discrimination on the basis of ancestry or physical or cultural characteristics associated with a certain race, such as skin color, hair texture or styles, or certain facial features.” 98

The Supreme Court’s decision in Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji 99 supports the contention that discrimination based on “race” would be interpreted to include discrimination on the basis of “ancestry.” There, a professor — who was a United States citizen born in Iraq — filed suit alleging that his denial of tenure was based on his Arabian heritage and thus constituted unlawful discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 100 The district court dismissed the complaint, ruling that a claim under § 1981 could not be maintained for discrimination based on being of the “Arabian race.” 101 The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed, holding that the complaint properly alleged discrimination based on race. In so doing, the court of appeals explained that § 1981 was not limited to present racial classifications. Instead, the statute evinced an intention to recognize “at the least, membership in a group that is ethnically and physiognomically distinctive.” 102

The Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals’ decision and holding that discrimination based on “Arabian ancestry” is racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 103 The Court stated that the court of appeals “was thus quite right in holding that § 1981, ‘at a minimum,’ reaches discrimination against an individual ‘because he or she is genetically part of an ethnically and physiognomically distinctive sub-grouping of homo sapiens .’” 104 The Court cautioned, however, that this was sufficient but not necessary, and that in this case Arab heritage was sufficient because the statute evinced that Congress intended to protect people from discrimination “because of their ancestry or ethnic characteristics.” 105 Indeed, the Court may have been eschewing a biological or genetic conception of race, in favor of an understanding predicated on social construction. To this point, the Court noted:

Many modern biologists and anthropologists, however, criticize racial classifications as arbitrary and of little use in understanding the variability of human beings. It is said that genetically homogeneous populations do not exist and traits are not discontinuous between populations; therefore, a population can only be described in terms of relative frequencies of various traits. Clear-cut categories do not exist. The particular traits which have generally been chosen to characterize races have been criticized as having little biological significance. It has been found that differences between individuals of the same race are often greater than the differences between the “average” individuals of different races. These observations and others have led some, but not all, scientists to conclude that racial classifications are for the most part sociopolitical, rather than biological, in nature. 106

Thus, it seems that the Court understood ancestry discrimination as a type of racial discrimination. 107 And under the Court’s understanding of “ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” even if formed primarily due to sociopolitical forces, caste would qualify as ancestry, and thus caste discrimination as ancestry discrimination and “race” discrimination. 108

Of course, the current Supreme Court may not accept this formulation of race as including “discrimination on the basis of ancestry” or an “ethnic[] and physiognomic[]” subgrouping. Indeed, it is plausible that the Court would interpret “race” to be rooted in racial classifications that were salient in the American experience at the time of the Act’s passage. 109 The new Court could disclaim its decision in Al-Khazraji . Or the Court might decide that, while “Arabian” ancestry was salient at the time of the Act’s drafting, South Asian caste was not.

Notwithstanding, in light of the Court’s precedent and the EEOC’s definition of “race” as encompassing ancestry discrimination, there remains a sound basis to find that discrimination based on South Asian caste is encompassed within Title VII’s category of “race.”

The analysis of whether caste discrimination is discrimination based on “color” is similar to the analysis under “race.” Just as with “race,” it likely rises or falls based on controversial questions about the nature of caste, along with difficult questions about the meaning of “color.”

Like “race,” “color” is not defined by Title VII. The EEOC explains that “[c]olor discrimination occurs when a person is discriminated against based on his/her skin pigmentation (lightness or darkness of the skin), complexion, shade, or tone. Color discrimination can occur between persons of different races or ethnicities, or even between persons of the same race or ethnicity.” 110

Based on the EEOC’s interpretation and a fair interpretation of the text, it does seem that for caste discrimination to be discrimination on the basis of “color” it must be related to discrimination based on skin “pigmentation . . . , complexion, shade, or tone” 111 (which, for ease, we call “visual skin color”). Finding that caste identity is related to visual skin color is difficult. 112 There is some empirical support for the claim, 113 but at the moment the strength of that relationship is uncertain. 114 As a historical matter, varna has one definition which literally translates to “color.” 115 If this referred to visual skin color, then there may be a strong basis — grounded in history and continued by a hereditary, endogamous system — to find caste discrimination as a type of color discrimination. But the consensus scholarly view seems to be that varna did not refer to skin color. 116

As a result, and based on our current understanding, we contend that for purposes of interpreting Title VII, caste discrimination is not best understood as discrimination on the basis of “color.”

D. Religion

What about religion? We contend that there is a plausible argument that caste discrimination can be viewed as discrimination based on religion.

Importantly, discrimination on the basis of religion can be on the basis of religious heritage. 117 That is, if an employee is discriminated against because their ancestors had particular religious beliefs or had a particular religious association, that is religious discrimination, even if the employee does not have those beliefs or accept that association.

Now, suppose a manager discriminates against an employee for their caste identity. The employee has the caste identity of being a Shudra or a Dalit. We know that is a feature of their religious heritage, and so we need not further ask whether the employee has any particular religious beliefs or accepts the association. The question is firmly whether this feature of their heritage is religious heritage. We think it is.

First, caste identity is inextricably linked to religious practice. Caste identity places one in a particular (complex) hierarchy in how they are viewed within a religious community, and in religious terms such as purity, pollution, and piety. In particular, someone being a Shudra or a Dalit means that they are, due to bigotry, seen as occupying a lesser position or role in their religious community — whatever their religion is. Historically, access to places of worship has, and continues to be, closely linked to one’s caste identity. 118 And it is a core facet of caste that it places one in that hierarchy. Consequently, discrimination based on caste is discrimination based on one’s role in their religious community — and that is religious discrimination. 119

An example may clarify: Suppose an employee of unknown religion confesses to their manager that their clan is seen as the lowest in their religious community — but the employee gives no further details about their religion. The manager is disgusted by this and fires them. In so doing, the manager is discriminating against the employee because of a facet of their religious identity. Even though the manager is largely ignorant of the employee’s religious identity, that is still plainly religious discrimination.

In a similar vein, we might also argue that caste identity always qualifies one’s religious identity. It is, in a sense, being part of a particular sect of a religion. Understood thusly, it is pellucid that caste discrimination should constitute religious discrimination.

Now one might object that caste identity is compatible with different religious identities. For example, one can be a Shudra or a Dalit and be of many different religious backgrounds — among other things, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist. What if the manager does not care at all about the employee’s religion? Would this take caste discrimination outside the scope of religious discrimination?

We think not. First, as argued above, we think that caste discrimination is discrimination based on position in religious society — and thus is religious discrimination. But caste also impacts other parts of one’s life, so the objecting manager may protest that religion has nothing to do with their motivations. Even still, we think the argument is unavailing for another reason: because caste relates to religious heritage. That is, to discriminate against someone based on caste is usually to discriminate against them on the basis that they had an ancestor who occupied a certain position in Hindu society. This is for the simple fact that the caste system is inherited from Hindu society — and one’s caste identity arises from ancestors who occupied a certain position in that Hindu society. We contend that this is religious discrimination. That is because we understand discrimination based on religious heritage as discrimination on the basis of religion, irrespective of the employee’s actual beliefs. 120 But this may also be properly considered discrimination on the basis of ancestry, and therefore as discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. Important here is to recognize that there may be overlap between these categories. 121

In light of that, we can put this idea simply in terms of the but-for test: But for the employee having an ancestor who had a particular caste identity as defined and dictated by Hindu religious practice, the employee would not have been discriminated against. Ergo, but for the employee having a particular Hindu heritage, the employee would not have been discriminated against. Hence, had the employee’s ancestors not been Hindu, the employee would not have their caste identity (that was the subject of discrimination). That is then clearly religious (heri-tage) discrimination.

The conceptual test reaches the same conclusion: one cannot understand the employee’s caste identity without appeal to certain Hindu ideas — thus, caste identity is conceptually dependent on religious practice and is therefore religious discrimination. 122

E. Mixed Motivation

One’s caste identity may be determined by myriad features, other than purely ancestral traits. Their caste identity could, for example, be defined by adopted religion, where one lives, and what languages one speaks, among other things. 123 Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, himself a Dalit, converted to Buddhism from Hinduism because he believed caste discrimination was endemic to Hinduism. 124 In addition to his own conversion, Ambedkar led a mass conversion movement, called the Ambedkarite Buddhism movement (or the Dalit Buddhist movement). 125 Those who were or are part of that movement may identify as Dalit Buddhists, due to their ancestral Dalit identity and their non-ancestral trait of their religious beliefs.

Discrimination against someone based on this combined identity — here, being a Dalit Buddhist — will in the vast majority of cases satisfy the but-for causation test with respect to the ancestral portion of their caste identity. For example, we could imagine someone who discriminated against a Dalit Buddhist, but not a Dalit Hindu nor a non-Dalit Buddhist. The discriminator’s motivation for discrimination is not simply that the employee is a Dalit, but that they are a Dalit who flouted Hindu identity by converting to Buddhism. However, in such an example, but for the person’s Dalit identity, they would not have been discriminated against. 126

One common strategy to defeat recognizing discrimination on mixed-motivation is to disentangle the purportedly separate motivations and then question each in isolation. For example, suppose an employee claims she is being discriminated against for being a Black woman, but the employer also discriminated against non-Black women as well as Black men. Applying a “divide-and-conquer” strategy, the employer may be able to undermine but-for causation on either of the bases of being Black or being a woman, by using non-Black employees (including discriminated-against women) as comparators for assessing the racial component of her claim, while using male employees (including discriminated-against Black men) as comparators for the gendered component. A similar argument might arise against the Dalit Buddhist, where the employer discriminates against non-Buddhist Dalits as well as non-Dalit Buddhists.

Here, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work is critical and illuminating. Among her observations, she recognized that discrimination across multiple axes of identity may result in particularly pernicious treatment for the targets of such discrimination. 127 Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality may allow targets of multiaxial discrimination to use comparators who suffer discrimination, but not as severe, to ground their claims. 128 In our examples, if Dalit Buddhists are treated more severely than Dalit non-Buddhists and non-Dalit Buddhists, they can still ground their claim as they suffer worse treatment than these comparators. 129

Caste discrimination is in our midst in the United States. Given the nature of caste, which seeks to indelibly mark and stigmatize, this discrimination reaches all facets of life, and thus, it is no surprise that it enters our workplaces. This issue requires our collective awareness and our vigilance. We have argued that Title VII gives us the tools to ensure that we can prevent, rectify, and ensure restitution for caste discrimination. In particular, we have shown how under the text of Title VII, in light of the Supreme Court’s teaching in Bostock v. Clayton County , caste discrimination is cognizable as race discrimination, religious discrimination, and national origin discrimination.

While these arguments are strong, given that judicial interpretation of Title VII’s protections are in flux, the surest way to ensure that workers who experience caste discrimination are able to access recourse is to explicitly enshrine “caste” as a prohibited basis of discrimination, in both executive-branch policy and in the text of Title VII itself. The EEOC could issue an opinion letter or guidance clarifying that Title VII’s provisions prohibiting race, national origin, and/or religious discrimination forbid discrimination on the basis of caste. An even stronger protection, of course, would be for Congress to pass legislation that explicitly states that caste discrimination is unlawful under Title VII. Even in this time of extreme partisanship, this is uncontroversial and should garner bipartisan support. 130 Furthermore, though we do not contend that EEOC guidance or amending Title VII thusly would serve as a magic-bullet solution to a complicated, deep-rooted problem, it would have an important signaling effect, putting workplaces on notice that caste-based discrimination is real and must be vigilantly addressed. Finally, although we address South Asian caste discrimination in particular, there are other types of “caste” and ancestry discrimination that occur around the globe. 131 We think that this case study of caste discrimination, and how it may be addressed by Title VII, applies generally. In that spirit, both the executive branch and Congress should act to clarify that all varieties of global “caste” discrimination are unlawful and intolerable in a just society.

* Assistant Professor, South Texas College of Law. ** J.D., 2013, Yale Law School. The views expressed in this Essay represent solely the personal views of the authors. The South Asian caste system was and is a paradigm of injustice. It has perpetuated incomprehensible suffering. We wish to acknowledge that we are, as a matter of ancestry, members of the dominant Brahmin caste — a designation that has conferred upon us systemic privilege we have done nothing to deserve. We would like to thank Susannah Barton Tobin, Mitchell Berman, Anisha Gupta, Alexander Platt, Charles Rocky Rhodes, Peter Salib, Anuradha Sivaram, and Eric Vogelstein for insightful comments and questions. We would also like to acknowledge the pathbreaking work of Equality Labs on these issues, which served as an inspiration for this Essay.

^ See Yashica Dutt, Opinion, The Specter of Caste in Silicon Valley , N. Y. TIMES (July 14, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/caste-cisco-indian-americans-discrimination.html [ https://perma.cc/DMS8-LCTF ]; David Gilbert, Silicon Valley Has a Caste Discrimination Problem , VICE NEWS (Aug. 5, 2020, 8:16AM), https://www.vice.com/en/article/3azjp5/silicon-valley-has-a-caste-discrimination-problem [ https://perma.cc/W3V8-H6WN ]; Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Opinion, A New Lawsuit Shines a Light on Caste Discrimination in the U.S. and Around the World , WASH. POST (July 13, 2020, 4:57 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/new-lawsuit-shines-light-caste-discrimination-us-around-world [ https://perma.cc/5CV8-LC64 ].

^ Paige Smith, Caste Bias Lawsuit Against Cisco Tests Rare Workplace Claim , BLOOMBERG L. (July 17, 2020, 2:45 AM), https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/caste-bias-lawsuit-against-cisco-tests-rare-workplace-claim [ https://perma.cc/2E6E-A7TN ]; Press Release, California Dep’t of Fair Emp. & Hous., DFEH Sues Cisco Systems, Inc. and Former Managers for Caste-Based Discrimination (June 30, 2020), https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2020/06/Cisco_2020.06.30.pdf [ https://perma.cc/VWC2-79J7 ].

^ Press Release, California Dep’t of Fair Emp. & Hous., supra note 2. DFEH initially brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging violations of Title VII. Id . Thereafter, on October 16, 2020, DFEH voluntarily dismissed the suit without prejudice, stating its intention to refile in California state court. California Drops Caste Discrimination Case Against Cisco, Says Will Re-file , The Wire (Oct. 21, 2020), https:// thewire.in/caste/california-drops-caste-discrimination-case-against-cisco-says-will-re-file [ https://perma.cc/P6Z7-E8NM ]. This action may have been because of some question as to whether caste discrimination is cognizable under Title VII or other federal law. If so, we contend this Essay establishes that it is.

^ Gilbert, supra note 1.

^ E.g ., Hum. Rts. Watch, Caste Discrimination (2001), https://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/g/general/caste0801.pdf [ https://perma.cc/YA8L-Z8PR ] (discussing discrimination against Dalits in South Asia); Hillary Mayell, India’s “Untouchables” Face Violence, Discrimination , Nat’l Geographic (June 2, 2003), https://www.nationalgeographic.com/pages/article/indias-untouchables-face-violence-discrimination [ https://perma.cc/L5XE-263U ] (“Human rights abuses against [‘untouchables’], known as Dalits, are legion.”).

^ We will use the term “dominant caste” to refer to the so-called “upper castes,” which better reflects the hierarchy of power that has created systemic oppression of Dalits, Adivasis, and other disfavored castes. We will use the term “oppressed caste” to refer to Dalits, Adivasis, and other disfavored castes. See infra notes 41–44 and accompanying text.

^ See Dutt, supra note 1.

^ Nitasha Tiku, India’s Engineers Have Thrived in Silicon Valley. So Has Its Caste System ., Wash. Post (Oct. 27, 2020, 6:45 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/27/indian-caste-bias-silicon-valley [ https://perma.cc/VP2F-U7QX ].

^ Maari Zwick-Maitreyi, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Natasha Dar, Ralph F. Bheel & Prathap Balakrishnan, Equal. Labs, Caste in the United States: A Survey of Caste Among South Asian Americans 10 (2018), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58347d04bebafbb1e66df84c/t/603ae9f4cfad7f515281e9bf/1614473732034/Caste_report_2018.pdf [ https://perma.cc/7PW3-DUL5 ] [hereinafter Caste in the United States ].

^ Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents 128 (2020).

^ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Opinion, Securing the Rights of India’s “Untouchables ,” The Hill (Feb. 27, 2018, 3:30 PM), https://thehill.com/opinion/international/375851-securing-the-rights-of-indias-untouchables [ https://perma.cc/2L2S-9Z67 ].

^ 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq .

^ 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020).

^ Id . at 1737.

^ E.g ., A New Dictionary of the Social Sciences 194 (G. Duncan Mitchell ed., 2d ed. 1979) (defining “social stratification” and explaining the concept of “caste”).

^ See generally, e.g ., Elijah Obinna, Contesting Identity: The Osu Caste System Among Igbo of Nigeria , 10 Afr. Identities 111 (2012) (describing the Osu caste system among the Igbo people in Nigeria); Tal Tamari, The Development of Caste Systems in West Africa , 32 J. Afr. Hist . 221 (1991) (explaining endogamous groups that exist in West Africa); Hiroshi Wagatsuma & George A. De Vos , The Ecology of Special Buraku , in Japan’s Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality 113–28 ( George A. De Vos & Hiroshi Wagatsuma eds., 1966) (describing Japan as having a caste system and discussing the position and oppression of the Buraku people); Paul Eckert, North Korea Political Caste System Behind Abuses: Study , Reuters (June 5, 2012, 9:11 PM), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-north-caste/north-korea-political-caste-system-behind-abuses-study-idUSBRE85505T20120606 [ https://perma.cc/NZ9Z-4J3L ] (describing the “Songbun” caste system in North Korea).

^ A New Dictionary of the Social Sciences , supra note 15, at 194 (stating that the “classical Hindu system of India approximated most closely to pure caste”).

^ The caste system continues to exist in some form in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, among other countries, which collectively have a population of nearly 1.8 billion people. See Population, Total — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal , World Bank Grp ., https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?end=2019&locations=IN-PK-BD-NP&start=2019&view=bar [ https://perma.cc/8YYT-XN24 ] (searches for country populations); Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury, Caste-Based Discrimination in South Asia: A Study of Bangladesh 2, 51–55 (Indian Inst. Dalit Stud., Working Paper Vol. III No. 7, 2009), http://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Bangladesh/Caste-based_Discrimination_in_Bangladesh__IIDS_working_paper_.pdf [ https://perma.cc/CQ5N-VFHJ ]; Peter Kapuscinski, More “Can and Must Be Done” to Eradicate Caste-Based Discrimination in Nepal , UN News (May 29, 2020), https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1065102 [ https://perma.cc/JZ62-FVUB ]; Rabia Mehmood, Pakistan’s Caste System: The Untouchable’s Struggle , Express Trib . (Mar. 31, 2012), https://tribune.com.pk/story/357765/pakistans-caste-system-the-untouchables-struggle [ https://perma.cc/4H9Z-46SJ ]; Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network & Int’l Dalit Solidarity Network , Caste-Based Discrimination in Pakistan 2–3 (2017), https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/1402076/1930_1498117230_int-cescr-css-pak-27505-e.pdf [ https://perma.cc/77TM-P8WB ]; Mari Marcel Thekaekara, Opinion, India’s Caste System Is Alive and Kicking — And Maiming and Killing , The Guardian (Aug. 15, 2016, 11:55 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/15/india-caste-system-70-anniversary-independence-day-untouchables [ https://perma.cc/ER4H-L4KY ].

^ In one important passage, the Rig Veda describes a four-part social hierarchy — of the brahmana , rajanya (later associated with the kshatriya class), vaishya , and shudra . The Hymns of the Rigveda 10.90.12 (Ralph T.H. Griffith trans., Motilal Banarsidass 1973). The Bhagavad Gita also details the general distinction of caste. The B hagavad-GÎt 4.13 , at 110 (A. Mahâdeva Śâstri trans., 2d ed. 1901) (describing the four-fold division of mankind). The Dharmasastras and Dharmasutras , compilations of texts about various Hindu cultural practices, offer an extremely detailed account of the operation of the caste system. The proper understanding of all of these sources is up for debate. See, e.g ., Dharmasūtras: The Law Codes of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana, and Vasiṣṭha , at xlii–xliii (Patrick Olivelle ed., trans., Oxford U. Press 1999) (contending that the Dharmasutras are “normative texts” but contain “[d]ivergent [v]oices,” id . at xlii); J.E. Llewellyn, The Modern Bhagavad Gītā : Caste in Twentieth-Century Commentaries , 23 Int’l J. Hindu Stud . 309, 309–23 (2019) (analyzing differing interpretations of caste by leading Hindu thinkers); M.V. Nadkarni, Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism? Demolishing a Myth , 38 Econ. & Pol. Wkly . 4783, 4783 (2003) (arguing that Hinduism did not support the caste system); Chhatrapati Singh, Dharmasastras and Contemporary Jurisprudence , 32 J. Indian L. Inst . 179, 179–82 (1990) (explaining the various ways of interpreting the Dharmasastras ); Debate Casts Light on Gita & Caste System , Times of India (Apr. 8, 2017, 7:10 PM), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/58072655.cms [ https://perma.cc/Q5XG-MSA9 ] (describing a “heated debate” over interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita ). Regardless, what is clear is that caste was endemic to Hindu practice over time.

^ See generally, e.g ., U.A.B. Razia Akter Banu, Islam in Bangladesh 1–64 (1992) (explaining the distinctive nature of Islam in Bangladesh and Bengali communities); Adil Hussain Khan, From Sufism to Ahmadiyya 42–90 (2015) (detailing the rise of the distinctive Ahmadiyya sect of Islam that arose in Punjab); Rowena Robinson, Christians of India 11–38, 103–39 (2003) (explaining the distinctive Christianity that has developed in India, arising from the mixing of Christian theology and practice and regional traditions); Paul Zacharia, The Surprisingly Early History of Christianity in India , Smithsonian Mag . (Feb. 19, 2016), https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-christianity-came-to-india-kerala-180958117 [ https://perma.cc/KRY4-UN3C ] (describing the traditions of the modern Syrian Christians of Kerala).

^ See generally Chandrashekhar Bhat, Ethnicity and Mobility 1–9 (1984); Declan Quigley, The Interpretation of Caste 4 (1993).

^ Sumeet Jain, Note, Tightening India’s “Golden Straitjacket”: How Pulling the Straps of India’s Job Reservation Scheme Reflects Prudent Economic Policy , 8 Wash. U. Glob. Stud. L. Rev . 567, 568 n.7 (2009) (outlining the four-part varna system).

^ Sean A. Pager, Antisubordination of Whom? What India’s Answer Tells Us About the Meaning of Equality in Affirmative Action , 41 U.C. Davis L. Rev . 289, 325 (2007) (discussing the so-called “untouchables,” outside the four-part varna system).

^ Bhat, supra note 21, at 2–3 (discussing the panchama varna and its traditional Vedic understanding); Varsha Ayyar & Lalit Khandare, Mapping Color and Caste Discrimination in Indian Society , in The Melanin Millennium 71, 75, 83 (Ronald E. Hall ed., 2012) (defining the fifth caste as describing “ex-untouchables,” id . at 83, or those outside of the varna system).

^ See Bhat , supra note 21, at 6–7; Ayyar & Khandare, supra note 25, at 75.

^ See Dalits , Minority Rts. Grp. Int’l , https://minorityrights.org/minorities/dalits [ https://perma.cc/TVV9-UN9R ].

^ Bhat, supra note 21, at 3 (discussing the jati system).

^ Padmanabh Samarendra, Census in Colonial India and the Birth of Caste , 46 Econ. & Pol. Wkly . 51, 52 (2011) (explaining the variety of factors that inform jati identity, based in part on region).

^ Who Are Dalits? , Navsarjan Tr ., https://navsarjantrust.org/who-are-dalits [ https://perma.cc/599J-QEHY ] (detailing the subdivisions based on profession within the Dalit community).

^ “Adivasi” and “scheduled tribe” are the terms for certain tribes in the Subcontinent. The term “Adivasi” itself means “original inhabitants.” Adivasis , Minority Rts. Grp. Int’l , https://minorityrights.org/minorities/adivasis-2 [ https://perma.cc/Q34Q-2L95 ]. They face severe discrimination in India and South Asia. Id .

^ Robert Meister, Discrimination Law Through the Looking Glass , 1985 Wis. L. Rev . 937, 975 (book review).

^ See supra note 19 and accompanying text.

^ See, e.g ., Indian Temple “Purified” After Low-Caste Chief Minister Visits , Reuters (Sept. 30, 2014, 9:10 AM), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foundation-india-caste/indian-temple-purified-after-low-caste-chief-minister-visits-idUSKCN0HP1DE20140930 [ https://perma.cc/8NHE-MB9T ].

^ Caste in the United States , supra note 9, at 10.

^ Dipankar Gupta, Interrogating Caste 54–147 (2000) (observing that individual castes do not necessarily recognize claims of inferiority and thus questioning claims of strict hierarchy between the castes, especially between the “Brahman, Baniya [or vaishya ], [and] Raja [or kshatriya ],” id . at 116).

^ See Jain, supra note 22, at 569 n.7.

^ See sources cited supra note 5.

^ Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, Where Are the Shudras? , Caravan (Sept. 30, 2018), https://caravanmagazine.in/caste/why-the-shudras-are-lost-in-today-india [ https://perma.cc/S6DY-U4BR ] (discussing discrimination against Shudra communities in India); Tapasya, Not Just “Dalits”: Other-Caste Indians Suffer Discrimination Too , Diplomat ( Aug. 27, 2019), https://thediplomat.com/2019/08/not-just-dalits-other-caste-indians-suffer-discrimination-too [ https://perma.cc/M67R-WE9G ].

^ See, e.g ., T.M. Scanlon, Why Does Inequality Matter? 26 (2018) (“Caste systems and societies marked by racial or sexual discrimination are obvious examples of objectionable inequality.”).

^ See generally Kaivan Munshi, Caste and the Indian Economy , 57 J. Econ. Literature 781 (2019) (explaining that “[c]aste plays a role at every stage of an Indian’s economic life,” from school, to university, to the labor market, and into old age, id . at 781).

^ See, e.g ., Nirmala Carvalho, Indian Church Admits Dalits Face Discrimination , Crux (Mar. 24, 2017), https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/03/indian-church-admits-dalits-face-discrimination [ https://perma.cc/M8QD-6E28 ]; Dheer, supra note 39 (observing that there were three separate Sikh shrines based on caste identity); Anuj Kumar, Dalit Women Not Allowed to Enter Temple , The Hindu (Nov. 1, 2019, 2:27 AM), https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/dalit-women-not-allowed-to-enter-temple/article29847456.ece [ https://perma.cc/BGJ5-HDA2 ]; Tension over Temple Entry by Dalits , The Hindu (Sept. 2, 2020, 6:08 PM), https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/tension-over-temple-entry-by-dalits/article32505553.ece [ https://perma.cc/29N4-DX85 ]; Shivam Vij, In Allahpur, a Moment of Truth , Pulitzer Ctr . (Sept. 12, 2011), https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/allahpur-moment-truth [ https://perma.cc/G3A4-LRKE ] (detailing different mosques based on caste identity). Surveying the news, the vast majority of reported incidents of caste discrimination in places of worship involve Hindu temples. Many of these are not even reported or openly identified, because they are unspoken but known norms that oppressed castes do not dare transgress. There is reason to believe that such caste discrimination is prevalent across South Asian religions, but that does not absolve Hindu practice. Instead, it seeks acknowledgment of the extent of the evil.

^ See, e.g ., Shamani Joshi, A Community in Gujarat Has Banned Inter-caste Marriage and Mobile Phones for Unmarried Girls , Vice (July 18, 2019, 3:02 AM), https://www.vice.com/en/article/evye5e/a-community-in-gujarat-india-has-banned-inter-caste-marriage-and-mobile-phones-for-unmarried-girls [ https://perma.cc/KCT9-CZK8 ].

^ See, e.g ., Couple, Who Had “Intercaste Marriage,” Killed , Hindustan Times (June 28, 2019, 12:07 AM), https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/couple-who-had-intercaste-marriage-killed/story-3cmlhKaraKeGMwoQ6ytxeL.html [ https://perma.cc/245B-D576 ]; Dalit Man Killed by In-Laws Over Inter-caste Marriage: Gujarat Cops , NDTV (July 9, 2019), https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/dalit-man-killed-by-in-laws-over-inter-caste-marriage-gujarat-cops-2066848 [ https://perma.cc/8YMQ-JD6R ].

^ See, e.g ., Hum. Rts. Watch , supra note 5, at 8 (stating that Dalits are often not allowed to enter the houses of so-called upper-caste people).

^ See, e.g ., Dalits, OBCs Forced to Bury Their Deceased by the Roadside , Sabrangindia (Mar. 21, 2020), https://sabrangindia.in/article/dalits-obcs-forced-bury-their-deceased-roadside [ https://perma.cc/V3GT-759U ]; Karal Marx, Denied Access to Crematorium, Dalits “Airdrop” Dead in Tamil Nadu , Times of India (Aug. 22, 2019, 2:51 PM), http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/70779016.cms [ https://perma.cc/7FKN-JBHF ]; Sanjay Pandey, Crematorium Turns “Casteist” as “Upper Caste” People Forbid Funeral of Dalit Woman in Uttar Pradesh , Deccan Herald (July 28, 2020, 4:58 PM), https://www.deccanherald.com/national/crematorium-turns-casteist-as-upper-caste-people-forbid-funeral-of-dalit-woman-in-uttar-pradesh-866699.html [ https://perma.cc/WC24-EGJ8 ]; Anand Mohan Sahay, Backward Muslims Protest Denial of Burial , Rediff India Abroad (Mar. 6, 2003, 2:58 AM), https://www.rediff.com/news/2003/mar/06bihar.htm [ https://perma.cc/85QM-F4YA ].

^ See, e.g ., Soutik Biswas, Hathras Case: Dalit Women Are Among the Most Oppressed in the World , BBC (Oct. 6, 2020), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54418513 [ https://perma.cc/WW9P-45XH ]; Vineet Khare, The Indian Dalit Man Killed for Eating in Front of Upper-Caste Men , BBC (May 20, 2019), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48265387 [ https://perma.cc/LR9D-T2QU ]; Nilanjana S. Roy, Viewpoint: India Must Stop Denying Caste and Gender Violence , BBC (June 11, 2014), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27774908 [ https://perma.cc/8VK3-VJN6 ]; Gautham Subramanyam, In India, Dalits Still Feel Bottom of the Caste Ladder , NBC News (Sept. 13, 2020, 4:30 AM), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-dalits-still-feel-bottom-caste-ladder-n1239846 [ https://perma.cc/2Z67-BPA5 ].

^ See, e.g ., Ilaiah Shepherd, supra note 44 (discussing lack of representation for Shudra communities in India); Bhola Paswan, Dalits and Women the Most Under-Represented in Parliament , The Record (Mar. 3, 2018), https://www.recordnepal.com/data/dalits-and-women-the-most-under-represented-in-parliament [ https://perma.cc/5C27-Q3D9 ].

^ In India, caste discrimination was explicitly addressed in the Constitution, authored by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. See Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar , Encyc. Britannica , https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bhimrao-Ramji-Ambedkar [ https://perma.cc/GX6S-AHJZ ]. Article 17 states that “‘Untouchability’ is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of ‘Untouchability’ shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.” India Const. art. 17. These protections were further instantiated in legislation, including primarily in the Untouchability (Offences) Act of 1955, which prohibited and punished discrimination on the basis of untouchability in various arenas including religious institutions and commercial entities. Untouchable , Encyc. Britannica , https://www.britannica.com/topic/untouchable [ https://perma.cc/QLV2-VEW2 ]. In practice, enforcement of these protections has been difficult, especially in rural India. Id .; Kaivan Munshi, Why Does Caste Persist? , Indian Express (Nov. 2, 2013, 3:16 AM), https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-does-caste-persist [ https://perma.cc/KZW8-ENHE ] (“Given the segregation along caste lines that continues to characterise the Indian village, most social interactions also occur within the caste.”).

^ One set of “reservation” reforms in India was implemented nationally by the Mandal Commission, tasked with determining how to uplift “backward classes” — primarily through reservations and quotas. Sunday Story: Mandal Commission Report, 25 Years Later , Indian Express (Sept. 1, 2015, 12:54 AM), https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/sunday-story-mandal-commission-report-25-years-later [ https://perma.cc/VM4S-MABP ]; see also E.J. Prior, Constitutional Fairness or Fraud on the Constitution? Compensatory Discrimination in India , 28 Case W. Rsrv. J. Int’l L . 63, 81 (1996) (providing further history on the Mandal Commission); Jagdishor Panday, More Reservation Quotas Sought for Ethnic Groups , Himalayan Times (Feb. 19, 2019, 8:56 AM), https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/more-reservation-quotas-sought-for-ethnic-groups [ https://perma.cc/WBW7-PSK2 ] (discussing reservation on the basis of ethnicity and caste in Nepal).

^ See, e.g ., Shashi Tharoor, Why India Needs a New Debate on Caste Quotas , BBC (Aug. 29, 2015), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34082770 [ https://perma.cc/H3U6-E3VN ] (“Inevitably, a backlash has set in, with members of the forward castes decrying the unfairness of affirmative action in perpetuity . . . .”).

^ See generally Caste in the United States , supra note 9; Gov. Equals. Off., Caste Discrimination and Harassment in Great Britain, Report , 2010/8 (2010), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/85524/caste-discrimination-summary.pdf [ https://perma.cc/8BPY-YMP5 ] (discussing prevalence of caste discrimination in Great Britain).

^ Babasaheb Ambedkar, 1 Writings and Speeches 5–6 (1979) (quoting Sheridhar V. Ketkar , I The History of Caste in India 4 (1909)).

^ See, e.g ., Caste in the United States , supra note 9, at 12.

^ Id . at 10–11.

^ See id . at 11.

^ Wilkerson , supra note 10, at 126. In United States v. Thind , 261 U.S. 204 (1923), the Court considered whether a “high caste Hindu” was “white” for purposes of naturalization under the Immigration Act of 1917, id . at 206, ultimately answering the question in the negative, id . at 215. In support of his position, Thind’s counsel stressed Thind’s common ancestral and linguistic ties to Europe, given his “Aryan” roots. John S.W. Park, Elusive Citizenship: Immigration, Asian Americans, and the Paradox of Civil Rights 124 (2004). Thind’s counsel further wrote: “The high-caste Hindu regards the aboriginal Indian Mongoloid in the same manner as the American regards the Negro, speaking from a matrimonial standpoint.” Id .

^ Caste in the United States , supra note 9, at 12.

^ Demographic Information , S. Asian Ams. Leading Together , https://saalt.org/south-asians-in-the-us/demographic-information [ https://perma.cc/4F8R-GKT3 ].

^ South Asians by the Numbers: Population in the U.S. Has Grown by 40% Since 2010 , S. Asian Ams. Leading Together (May 15, 2019), https://saalt.org/south-asians-by-the-numbers-population-in-the-u-s-has-grown-by-40-since-2010 [ https://perma.cc/XD5K-YRSD ].

^ Pub. L. No. 89-236, 79 Stat. 911 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C.).

^ See Caste in the United States , supra note 9, at 13–14.

^ Id . at 13.

^ See id . at 13–14.

^ Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 8 U.S.C. and at 29 U.S.C. § 2920).

^ See generally Muzaffar Chishti & Stephen Yale-Loehr, Migration Pol’y Inst., The Immigration Act of 1990: Unfinished Business a Quarter-Century Later (2016), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/1990-Act_2016_FINAL.pdf [ https://perma.cc/3WQS-SKYR ].

^ Caste in the United States , supra note 9, at 14.

^ Tinku Ray, The US Isn’t Safe from the Trauma of Caste Bias , The World (Mar. 8, 2019, 9:00 AM), https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-08/us-isn-t-safe-trauma-caste-bias [ https://perma.cc/7LUN-U49T ].

^ See, e.g ., Buck Gee & Denise Peck, Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management , Harv. Bus. Rev . (May 31, 2018), https://hbr.org/2018/05/asian-americans-are-the-least-likely-group-in-the-u-s-to-be-promoted-to-management [ https://perma.cc/5RNM-T6YY ]; Matt Schiavenza, Silicon Valley’s Forgotten Minority , New Republic (Jan. 11, 2018), https://newrepublic.com/article/146587/silicon-valleys-forgotten-minority [ https://perma.cc/WTG6-EKBB ].

^ See, e.g ., Ray, supra note 74.

^ Caste in the United States , supra note 9, at 26–27, 39.

^ Id . at 20.

^ See, e.g ., Paresh Dave, Indian Immigrants Are Tech’s New Titans , L.A. Times (Aug. 11, 2015, 8:57 PM), https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-indians-in-tech-20150812-story.html [ https://perma.cc/NYB3-W9QC ]; Riaz Haq, Pakistani-Americans in Silicon Valley , S. Asia Inv. Rev . (May 4, 2014), https://www.southasiainvestor.com/2014/05/pakistani-americans-in-silicon-valley.html [ https://perma.cc/Y7XK-J6HS ] (“Silicon Valley is home to 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistani Americans.”); India’s Engineers and Its Caste System Thrive in Silicon Valley: Report , Am. Bazaar (Oct. 28, 2020, 7:08 PM), https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2020/10/28/indias-engineers-and-its-caste-system-thrive-in-silicon-valley-report-442920 [ https://perma.cc/MPR8-CYPP ] (“The tech industry has grown increasingly dependent on Indian workers.”).

^ Tiku, supra note 8.

^ 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a).

^ See Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S. Ct. 1731, 1738–39 (2020).

^ Bostock , 140 S. Ct. at 1739.

^ Id . (citations omitted); see Michael Moore, Causation in the Law , Stan. Encyc. of Phil . (Oct. 3, 2019), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-law [ https://perma.cc/7UDF-5Q5S ] (discussing the but-for test or the sine qua non test).

^ See Bostock , 140 S. Ct. at 1749.

^ See infra section II.E, pp. 479–81.

^ See Koehler v. Infosys Techs. Ltd., 107 F. Supp. 3d 940, 949 (E.D. Wis. 2015) (recognizing South Asian heritage as a national origin); Sharma v. District of Colunbia, 65 F. Supp. 3d 108, 120 (D.D.C. 2014) (same).

^ U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, National Origin Discrimination , https://www.eeoc.gov/national-origin-discrimination [ https://perma.cc/XK6N-MJU9 ]; see also 29 C.F.R. § 1606.1 (2020) (addressing the definition of national origin under Title VII and stating that “[t]he Commission defines national origin discrimination broadly as including, but not limited to, the denial of equal employment opportunity because of an individual’s, or his or her ancestor’s, place of origin; or because an individual has the physical, cultural or linguistic characteristics of a national origin group”).

^ Michael James & Adam Burgos, Race , Stan. Encyc. of Phil . (May 25, 2020), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race [ https://perma.cc/4ZZ2-YGWH ].

^ See generally Oliver C. Cox, Race and Caste: A Distinction , 50 Am. J. Soc . 360 (1945) (arguing that caste and race are distinct).

^ Ancestry , Merriam-Webster , https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ancestry [ https://perma.cc/7V5R-7B26 ] (defining “ancestry” as “line of descent”).

^ See supra note 34 and accompanying text.

^ U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n , EEOC-NVTA-2006-1, Questions and Answers About Race and Color Discrimination in Employment (2006) https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/questions-and-answers-about-race-and-color-discrimination-employment [ https://perma.cc/R6XW-BTZ6 ].

^ 481 U.S. 604 (1987).

^ Id . at 606.

^ Id . (quoting Al-Khazraji v. St. Francis Coll., 784 F.2d 505, 517 (3d Cir. 1986)).

^ Id . at 607.

^ Id . at 613 (quoting Al-Khazraji , 784 F.2d at 517).

^ Id .; see also Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615, 617 (1987) (holding that a claim for discrimination based on Jewish heritage is cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, for similar reasons).

^ Al-Khazraji , 481 U.S. at 610 n.4. See also Khiara M. Bridges, The Dangerous Law of Biological Race , 82 Fordham L. Rev . 21, 52–57 (2013) (same); Chinyere Ezie, Deconstructing the Body: Transgender and Intersex Identities and Sex Discrimination — The Need for Strict Scrutiny , 20 Colum. J. Gender & L . 141, 178–80 (2011) (embracing the Al-Khazraji Court’s conception of race).

^ Though the Court acknowledged the limits of biological and genetic conceptions of race, if caste can be shown to pick out “ethnic[]” and “physiognomically distinctive” traits, there may be a strong argument that caste discrimination qualifies as racial discrimination on that alternative basis.

^ One might ask whether the EEOC’s interpretation holds any weight. Even with Chevron deference, we don’t think that answers the question definitively. See Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 843 (1984) (holding that courts give deference to an agency’s interpretations of an abmiguous statute, if the agency’s interpretation is a permissible construction of the statute). Here, the Court may not even find the term “race” to be ambiguous for Chevron deference to be applicable.

^ U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n , supra note 98.

^ See generally S. Chandrasekhar, Caste, Class, and Color in India , 62 Sci. Monthly 151 (1946) (arguing against the proposition that there is a strong relationship between caste and color).

^ See, e.g ., Ayyar & Khandare, supra note 25, at 71; Skin Colour Tied to Caste System, Says Study , Times of India (Nov. 21, 2016), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/55532665.cms [ https://perma.cc/25X3-M8HX ].

^ At the same time, discrimination on the basis of skin color is prevalent in South Asia and among South Asian populations. See generally Taunya Lovell Banks, C olorism Among South Asians: Title VII and Skin Tone Discrimination , 14 Wash. U. Glob. Stud. L. Rev . 665 (2015) (describing colorism in India and the South Asian diaspora and examining its role in employment discrimination claims filed by South Asians). Thus, certain kinds of discriminatory behavior may entangle both caste and skin color.

^ Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary 924 (1899).

^ Varna , Encyc. Britannica (Mar. 7, 2021), https://www.britannica.com/topic/varna-Hinduism [ https://perma.cc/WP5J-TAZG ] (stating that the idea that varna referenced skin color has been discredited); Neha Mishra, India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances , 14 Wash. U. Glob. Stud. L. Rev . 725, 726 n.6 (2015).

^ Gulitz v. DiBartolo, No. 08-CV-2388, 2010 WL 11712777, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. July 13, 2010) (“What is relevant is that Plaintiff identifies himself as ‘of Jewish heritage’ — an assertion fully supported by the fact that his father is Jewish. That Plaintiff does not practice the Jewish religion does not prevent him from being of Jewish heritage — that is, a descendant of those who did so practice — or from being discriminated against on account of the religion of his forbears.”); Sasannejad v. Univ. of Rochester, 329 F. Supp. 2d 385, 391 (W.D.N.Y. 2004) (recognizing potential religious discrimination claim of a nonpracticing Iranian Muslim, in part because of the interrelationship between national-origin discrimination and religious discrimination).

^ For example, Wilkerson describes how access to religious institutions is a core feature of caste discrimination across caste systems: “Untouchables were not allowed inside Hindu temples . . . . [They] were prohibited from learning Sanskrit and sacred texts.” Wilkerson , supra note 10, at 128.

^ Additionally, it is not easy for individuals to simply withdraw or ignore their religious community — that can come with serious costs and perils. Moreover, as we have seen, moving to another religious community may not remove the mark of caste.

^ See supra note 117 and accompanying text.

^ See Sasannejad , 329 F. Supp. 2d at 391.

^ This Essay emphasizes the cross-religious nature of caste, in order to recognize that caste discrimination can take many forms and is not necessarily confined to those who are (presently) Hindu. At the same time, in particular cases, it may be more salient to recognize the nature of caste discrimination based on the religious identity of those party to the suit. That is, for example, if the employer and employee are both Hindu, then one can appeal to the form of caste discrimination between and among Hindus to strengthen the case of religious discrimination under Title VII.

^ See supra note 33 and accompanying text.

^ Krithika Varagur, Converting to Buddhism as a Form of Political Protest , The Atlantic (Apr. 11, 2018), https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/dalit-buddhism-conversion-india-modi/557570 [ https://perma.cc/5G85-R94D ].

^ In any situation where but-for causation isn’t satisfied, we will likely be able to satisfy the conceptual causation test — because the concept of Dalit Buddhist identity depends on the concept of Dalit ancestry.

^ Kimberlé Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics , 1989 U. Chi. Legal F . 139, 140.

^ In some cases, as Crenshaw observed, this may be difficult because of the size of the class, especially if the claim is pursued on a disparate impact theory with use of empirical and statistical evidence. Id . at 143–46 (discussing Moore v. Hughes Helicopter, Inc., 708 F.2d 475 (9th Cir. 1983)). We share Crenshaw’s concerns on this front. We must continue to challenge how we recognize discrimination, beyond the formal models of causation in the law.

^ If they are not treated more severely, they may be able to pursue their claim separately under a disjunctive identity — that is, being Dalit or Buddhist. See Krishnamurthi & Salib, supra note 87 (discussing such examples and showing they are cognizable under Title VII).

^ In the United Kingdom, such legislation was floated but ultimately rejected, due to divides in the South Asian community as to the prevalence of caste discrimination. Prasun Sonwalkar, UK Government Decides Not to Enact Law on Caste Discrimination Among Indians, Community Divided , Hindustan Times (July 24, 2018, 12:22 PM), https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/uk-government-decides-not-to-enact-law-on-caste-discrimination-among-indians/story-HLDMdbZQhrNtoo4NKhxZOO.html [ https://perma.cc/4C9Q-AP98 ]. But of course, if caste discrimination actually doesn’t exist, then making caste discrimination unlawful should do little harm. Indeed, concerns of frivolous lawsuits are not new in Title VII; Title VII allows fee shifting for prevailing defendants “upon a finding that the plaintiff's action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation.” Christiansburg Garment Co. v. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, 434 U.S. 412, 421 (1978); see also 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k).

^ See supra note 107 for the discussion of understanding race discrimination as a type of caste discrimination.

• Civil Rights
• Discrimination
• Employment Law

June 20, 2021

Unveiling Invisibility: My Journey In Understanding Caste And Gender In Contemporary Society

Caste in India is inescapable, much like the air we breathe – omnipresent, yet often unnoticed until it reveals its polluted or scarce form. Just like air, caste system is an integral yet often invisible component of our social fabric. For those who benefit from its hierarchical structures, caste may remain a subtle backdrop, but for those marginalised by it, its oppressive presence is acutely felt.

For those who benefit from its hierarchical structures, caste may remain a subtle backdrop, but for those marginalised by it, its oppressive presence is acutely felt.

This dichotomy became clear to me during a conversation with a friend about authorship on caste discrimination. I had opined that ‘ anyone with a sense of justice and empathy for the marginalised should write about caste .’ My friend countered, suggesting that while it’s important to discuss caste, such narratives should be grounded in personal encounters and experiences, not appropriated from others. This exchange was a profound moment for me, leading to an epiphany: I must write from my own interactions with the caste system, detailing my firsthand observations and reflections. 

Childhood encounters

I vividly recall the first incident, though its true significance eluded me at the time. It occurred around 2007 or 2008, I was around twelve or thirteen years old. It was very hot outside and on top it the summer was marked by electricity and water shortages. Our village had a public handpump (Nalka) situated right in front of our home, a vital water source for the community. On this particular day, I went to fetch water in a Matka (a traditional pot). I would regularly see a lady in our street, a familiar figure from the village, who worked as a sweeper. Each day, she performed her duties diligently, a quiet constant in our daily lives.

Needing assistance, I asked her to help lift the filled Matka onto my head. Surprisingly, she declined, gently but firmly stating that my mother might not approve of her touching our Matka. This refusal left me perplexed and, admittedly, a little frustrated. I couldn’t understand her reluctance. Upon my insistence, she offered to keep watch over my Matka while I fetched someone from home to help. This brief interaction, seemingly mundane at the time, would later resonate deeply with me. It wasn’t until much later in life that I understood the gravity of that moment.

The lady, a Dalit, was painfully aware of the potential repercussions of touching an upper caste’s water pot. In the traditional caste hierarchy, the touch of a Dalit was often misconceived as “polluting”, particularly when it came to something as essential and communal as water. A simple, helpful gesture could have been construed as polluting. This incident, insignificant as it seemed then, unveiled the insidious nature of caste – invisible yet deeply embedded in our everyday lives. At the time, I was completely unaware of her caste or the rigid societal stratification that governed our seemingly simple exchange. The caste system, with its unspoken yet stringent rules, controlled our actions, influencing even those subjugated by its hierarchy. 

The caste system, with its unspoken yet stringent rules, controlled our actions, influencing even those subjugated by its hierarchy. 

As I reflect, I recognise how I was cocooned in my own caste bubble. Growing up a Jat (dominant caste in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh), I had unconsciously been comfortable in my caste identity, flaunting it in my daily interactions as though it were a personal triumph rather than a mere accident of birth. I was oblivious to the experiences of those who could not openly express their caste identity without fear of discrimination. My friends, predominantly from my own caste, shared similar cultural and dietary habits, further insulating me in a homogenous environment. 

Academic journey and caste blindness

As a girl, I was additionally sheltered by societal norms that subtly indoctrinated ideas about “good” and “bad” girls, setting invisible yet powerful boundaries around me. As a child, the complex layers of social stratification were beyond my comprehension. Yet, this interaction was my unwitting initiation into the nuanced power play of caste, an integral part of the social fabric that quietly orchestrates our lives. Unintentionally, I had been an active participant in perpetuating caste distinctions, normalising the practice of “othering” those outside my social circle. This “othering” shaped my social interactions and reinforced the dominant caste ideologies and biases that were ingrained in me. 

One incident in particular continues to resonate with me, not as a source of pride, but as a stark reminder of the privileges I unknowingly enjoyed in a caste-driven society. This privilege was the luxury of ignorance. This incident occurred during my academic journey, serving as a profound turning point in my understanding of caste. This realisation didn’t dawn upon me in the rural landscapes of Haryana, but within the intellectual halls of Delhi University where I was pursuing my Master’s degree in Political Science. Despite my educational background, I continued to exist under the veil of caste blindness, a privilege afforded by the people of dominant-caste status. It was a phase marked by a lack of genuine interest in critically examining and understanding the deep-rooted complexities of the caste system. 

I vividly remember during my masters one of our teacher introduced a new course titled ‘Dalit Bahujan Thought’ . My initial reaction to just the title was dismissive: ‘ Here we go again, another discourse on caste and the Varna system .’ I erroneously believed I already understood enough about the caste system, viewing it as a relic of the past. This attitude reflected my privileged position, which allowed me to remain detached from the realities of caste and its pervasive influence, as well as its ongoing political significance in contemporary society. 

The real shift in my perception began during my PhD coursework when I stumbled upon Gulamgiri by Jyotiba Phule and The Annihilation of Caste by Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

The real shift in my perception began during my PhD coursework when I stumbled upon Gulamgiri by Jyotiba Phule and The Annihilation of Caste by Dr B.R. Ambedkar. Engaging with Mahatma Phule and Dr Ambedkar’s critical examination of the caste system shattered the comfortable bubble of ignorance I had been living in, bringing me face to face with the harsh realities of caste dynamics. It prompted me to delve deeper into the subject, exploring the intricate connections between caste, power, and politics. 

My journey towards a more nuanced understanding of caste dynamics was significantly enriched by engaging dialogues with my Dalit and Bahujan peers. Hearing about their lived experiences, characterised by narratives of systemic injustice and the persistent stigma and shame associated with their caste identities from an early age– was both heart-wrenching and eye-opening. It was a stark contrast to my own upbringing, where caste was a badge of honour rather than a mark of oppression. It made me realise the extent to which I had been a part of, and complicit in, a system that perpetuated such deep-seated discrimination. Their narratives of endurance and resilience against the backdrop of societal prejudices provided me with a much-needed perspective, fundamentally altering my understanding and approach to caste.

The complexity of caste and gender

The most recent incident I recall occurred during my fieldwork in Haryana last year. I was conducting a group interview with about eight or nine women in a village. After completing my questions, they kindly invited me to join them for tea, offering an opportunity to observe their conversation further. These women, all belonging to Haryana’s dominant caste, shared their experiences of participating in the year-long farmers’ protest. They spoke of feeling a sense of liberation for the first time in their lives, an empowerment born from their active role in the protests. As daughters and wives of farmers, they discussed the challenges of sustaining their families on dwindling farming incomes.

But it was their personal stories of enduring domestic violence that struck me the most. Enduring violence often becomes a twisted norm for women, where the body is a ledger of unspoken suffering – each mark a testament to feeling less human, each moment a battle between weakness and the will to survive. This profound reality, revealed in their tales, highlighted the distressing normalisation of such violence in their lives, underscoring the resilience required to navigate a world where their pain is often unseen and their struggles unvoiced.

Here were women, who had stood at the forefront of a movement for rights and justice, now effortlessly perpetuating harmful stereotypes against Dalit women.

However, the tone of the conversation took a sharp turn when they began discussing the difficulties one woman was facing in finding a suitable bride for her son, highlighting the persistently low sex ratio in Haryana. Some women light-heartedly suggested looking for a bride from a Dalit family. The group’s laughter took a disturbing turn when one woman remarked that Dalit women were undesirable due to their alleged ‘ bad smell ‘. This casual, derogatory comment was not just a display of caste prejudice; it reinforced the deeply entrenched binary of purity and pollution associated with caste. 

This moment was a jarring contradiction to the themes of liberation and unity they had previously discussed. Here were women, who had stood at the forefront of a movement for rights and justice, now effortlessly perpetuating harmful stereotypes against Dalit women. Their laughter and dismissive comments were a stark reminder of how caste prejudices can overshadow shared experiences of gender discrimination and marginalisation. It highlighted the complex intersectionality of caste and gender issues, revealing how deep-rooted biases can remain entrenched, even in those who themselves have been subjugated within a patriarchal society.

I learned a vital lesson from my experiences: understanding and challenging deep biases is key to changing society. From personal realisations to broader social issues, I understood how much work we still have to do in fighting caste and gender discrimination. It’s a reminder for all of us to recognise our roles in these systems and to work together for a fairer and more just world.

Ritika, a PhD candidate specializing in Indian politics at IIT Guwahati, loves feline companions and coffee, and finds solace in the mountains.

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The Legacy of Gender and Caste Discrimination

In October 2019, the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion in International Affairs supported an intensive workshop for emerging scholars and leaders called “Toward Equal Dignity and Equal Rights: Global Dalit Change-makers.” A selection of papers presented during the conference that followed was further developed for inclusion in the peer-reviewed journal CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion , in a special issue focused on the legacy of gender and caste discrimination.

From the issue’s introduction by guest co-editor Ashok Gurung

The annihilation of caste-based injustice is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. The caste system directly dehumanizes over 240 million Dalits worldwide and sustains a complex system of graded exclusions and highly skewed privileges that benefits a select few while harming more than one billion people within and outside of the caste system in South Asia. Caste, in its myriad forms, enables and sustains a dense web of systemic inequities tied to one’s birth and endogamy. For millions of Dalits, the weight of the caste system is like a millstone around the neck, slowing grinding away at their future. Any meaningful engagement with a deeply entrenched and inter-generational caste-system must wrestle with fundamental questions such as what is caste and why does it persists. Most importantly, we need new narratives that can help us move beyond a casteist world.

Following debates on the persistence of caste-based discrimination, which was also the theme of the inaugural issue of J-Caste , this special issue on the Legacy of Gender and Caste Discrimination curates a set of multi-disciplinary research with a particular focus on Brahmanical patriarchy. It is also important to note that many of these authors are the first-generation of graduates in their communities, making their work even more noteworthy and important for expanding our discussions on caste.

This special issue consists of thirteen academic papers, a poem, an essay, a policy paper, and three book reviews. They underscore the central role of caste, as a distinct social category, in understanding the injustices and inequities experienced by Dalits, and in particular Dalit women.

In 2018 I was Senior Director of the India China Institute at The New School, and in that capacity I was able to persuade my friend and long-term collaborator Toby Volkman at the Henry Luce Foundation to provide some modest support for a week-long workshop with over a dozen young scholars and leaders, as well as an international conference, focused on Dalit issues. That crucial support from the Luce Foundation helped galvanize and mobilize additional support from the India China Institute, Brandeis University, Barnard College, Columbia University, the University of Massachusetts, the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, the Samata Foundation, the University of Cincinnati, the International Ambedkar Mission, the Boston Study Group, and the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs at The New School. Thanks to this amazing network, we were able to host a week-long workshop in New York City from October 21-24, 2019 titled “Toward Equal Dignity and Equal Rights: Global Dalit Change-makers.” The workshop was convened right before the Fifth Annual International Conference on The Unfinished Legacy of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar , “Dalits in Global Context: Rethinking Religion and Gender” (October 24-26, 2019), which was also held at The New School.

There was a large outpouring of interest in our call for papers for the conference, and we received over 360 abstracts from across the world. Out of that pool of abstracts, we invited 26 emerging scholars and activists and 12 established scholars and experts from South Asia, Europe, and the United States to join for a one-week intensive workshop prior to the conference. The papers featured in this special issue were initially presented by the authors at the Fifth Annual International Conference on The Unfinished Legacy of B. R. Ambedkar . We then invited select emerging scholars to incorporate conference feedback on their papers as well as insights from deliberations at the workshop and conference in New York. Sunaina Arya and I reviewed these draft papers, and with inputs from the larger editorial team of the Journal, they were sent out for additional double-blind peer-reviews. Some of the papers retain much of their original form from when they were presented at the conference, while others were significantly transformed into entirely new works, we believe for the better.

View the full issue

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Essays on inequality and discrimination : caste, religion and gender in India

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Inequalities, Caste, and Social Exclusion: Dalit Women’s Citizenship

• Published: 23 September 2019
• Volume 62 , pages 154–159, ( 2019 )

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• Shobha Raghuram 1  

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The article focuses on the problematic issues of the extreme degree of inequalities, discrimination and social exclusion as faced by women and in particular Dalit women in a democracy. Social justice is the central column of a socially inclusive democracy and the lack of it is reflected in the unequal economic, political and social status of women as is so highly evidenced in the case of Dalit (Dalit means ‘broken, scattered’ in Hindi, Sanskrit and refers to ethnic groups. The term is officially referred by the State as scheduled caste.) women and other marginalized groups in India.

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Colonialism and Gender in Africa

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ms. Anitha Shanthakumari and Dr. Monica Erwer for their valuable comments on this paper. I remain indebted to Ms. Hannah Broman who collaborated with me on various aspects of the longer paper. This paper is a shortened version. Lastly, this work is a tribute to millions of women who live the conditions of poverty, caste and gender discrimination, and yet teach us what it means to be citizens, to achieve agency over their lives, refusing bondage and slavery in democracies.

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Raghuram, S. Inequalities, Caste, and Social Exclusion: Dalit Women’s Citizenship. Development 62 , 154–159 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-019-00209-0

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Published : 23 September 2019

Issue Date : December 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-019-00209-0

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Caste Discrimination Essay

People are categorised according to their place of birth, community, and place of employment under the caste system. The practise of caste discrimination in India has its roots in history but has undergone numerous significant alterations since then and now the practice has been banned and declared illegal by the government. Here are a few sample essays on the topic ‘Caste Discrimination’.

100 Words Essay On Caste Discrimination

200 words essay on caste discrimination, 500 words essay on caste discrimination.

Indian society has long been heavily dominated by the caste system and became corrupt because of the nation's obsession with it. Originally, the caste system was intended to create distinct groups within our community in order to create social stratification and a separation of occupations. However, over time, this division took the form of a pyramidal structure, with the highest caste being linked to receiving the most respect. The rigid adherence to traditions, customs, and certain beliefs like superstitions or reincarnation and the deeds of previous lives was what made this patriarchal system toxic. All of this led to the treatment of Dalits and other members of the untouchable caste with cruelty and oppression.

In Indian society, the caste system has existed for a very long time and has a strong foundation. The Hindu community was divided into four main castes: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Shudras. Apart from this, there exists tens of thousands of sub-castes and communities. Instead of fostering a sense of respect for all professions, the caste system ultimately became a tool for discrimination. In the Indian caste system, people began constructing a ladder or pyramid structure to represent the degree of respect that should be accorded to each caste. The group of persons connected to the caste "shudras," subsequently known as the "untouchables," was the most persecuted and disadvantaged caste.

They were later given the name "Harijans" by Mahatma Gandhi. The scenario of the caste system in India has altered due to social reformers such as Dr. Ambedkar and Raja Rammohan Roy, as no caste discrimination is now permitted. They actively fought for the rights of OBCs, STs, and other caste groups. But despite their struggles and development of society, the caste system continues to have a negative impact on people's attitudes. It is essential to raise awareness, particularly in rural areas, to encourage people to get over their fixation on the caste system and to end all forms of caste-based discrimination by speaking out against them.

Indian society has a caste system that has existed for thousands of years. Ancient scriptures also make a categorical mention of castes. Eventually, this sort of segregation gave way to greed, which led to the higher castes oppressing the lower caste. Over time, the caste system changed and produced worse social ills.

However, as of now caste-based unfairness and prejudice are illegal in Independent India according to the law. Additionally, the government established a reservation system or "quota" for those from ST, SC, and OBC families in order to make up for the injustice done to lower castes or scheduled tribes in the past.

Even though the goal of the quota system was to give jobs and education to those who needed them and belonged to the socially backward classes, people soon began to abuse it for unfair means, such as obtaining reservations or opportunities for employment or education when they didn't need them and came from wealthy families.

Our worth should never be determined by our birth. We ought to be judged on how well we behave and how much we contribute to society through our employment.

Ancient Caste System

The ancient caste system divided the Indian society into four main castes and provided an account of their duties and ranks as mentioned below-

Brahmins | The highest position in society was granted to Brahmins. They portrayed well-known characters like the priest and the instructor. They were revered and worshipped by everyone else. Brahmins were regarded as the protectors of the society who set the rules for religion. As outlined in the sacred texts, they had a duty to uphold that order.

Kshatriyas | After the Brahmins, came the Kshatriyas. In ancient times, both of them had a friendly relationship. Kshatriyas played the parts of landlords and warriors. They served in the kings' and princely states' armies of India and were renowned for their bravery and valour.

Vaishyas | The Vaishyas were those who worked in commerce and other occupations. They were small traders, goldsmiths, and merchants. They served as society's primary producers of goods and communities. Following the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas held a strategically significant position in society.

Shudras | Shudras were people who worked as labourers, artisans, and other menial jobs. They were not allowed to participate in the ‘upnayan sanskar’ or the Vedic studies initiation ceremonies held at that time in order to become full members of the religious society.

While the first four classes were described in ancient literature, a fifth one known as ‘Dalits’ or ‘untouchables’ evolved from the Shudra caste. Other castes regarded Shudras who worked as sweepers, washers, shoemakers, and foragers as untouchables and thought their labour to be unclean. The untouchables experienced severe social, economic and educational discrimination. They were barred from attending religious events and even from sitting in front of ‘upper’ caste individuals.

The purpose of the caste system was to maintain order in the society but unfortunately, it eventually turned into a justification for harassing a certain community, depriving it of its basic rights and honour. As the rightful citizens of the largest democracy in the world, it is our obligation to ensure that all citizens, regardless of caste or other distinctions, enjoy equal freedom and position.

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• Published: 29 November 2013

Gender and caste-based wage discrimination in India: some recent evidence

Geschlecht und Kaste-ansässige Lohndiskriminierung in Indien: Einige Neue Beweise

• Tushar Agrawal 1  

Journal for Labour Market Research volume  47 ,  pages 329–340 ( 2014 ) Cite this article

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This paper examines gender and social groups wage discrimination in India using a nationally representative survey. We examine the wage gaps between different sub-groups of population separately in the rural and urban sectors using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method. To account for possibility of the sample selection bias, the Heckman correction model is employed. We find a large wage differential between gender groups and between different social groups. The decomposition analysis reveals that the wage differential between males and females can largely be attributed to discrimination in the labor market. Nevertheless, in case of social groups this gap is mostly driven by differences in endowments.

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Artikel untersucht geschlechts- und sozialgruppierungsspezifische Lohndiskriminierung in Indien basierend auf einer nationalrepräsentativen Umfrage. Unter Anwendung der Blinder-Oaxaca-Zerlegung werden Lohnunterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen untersucht, aufgeschlüsselt nach städtischen und ländlichen Gebieten. Darüber hinaus wird die Heckman-Korrektur angewandt. In diesem Artikel zeigt sich, dass große Lohnunterschiede sowohl zwischen Geschlechtern als auch zwischen verschiedenen Sozialgruppierungen auftreten. Während die Lohnunterschiede zwischen Männern und Frauen größtenteils auf Arbeitsmarktdiskriminierung zurückzuführen sind, entstehen diese Unterschiede bei den untersuchten Sozialgruppierungen durch gruppenspezifische Merkmale, die variierende Preise auf dem Arbeitsmarkt erzielen.

1 Introduction

Gender and social discrimination are key issues in the Indian labor market. Despite various efforts by the government such as reservation policies in educational institutions and in government and public sector employment, educational and occupational outcomes of females and disadvantaged social groups such as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are unsatisfactory. Footnote 1 These groups are associated with low paid, dead-end and insecure employment. Poverty rates are higher and educational attainment are lower among the SCs and the STs (Agrawal 2013a ; Das and Dutta 2007 ; Deshpande 2001 ; Gaiha et al. 2007 ). These disadvantaged groups face difficulties in finding regular employment since they face higher transaction costs associated with entry into the labor market (Ito 2009 ). The share of non-SCs/STs in regular employment is substantially higher than that for SCs/STs (Singh et al. 2013 ).

Caste is believed to be a defining characteristic in the Indian society. It can be characterized as a hierarchical, hegemonic ranking of social groups found predominantly on the Indian subcontinent (Kannabiran 2012 : 190). “Caste is undoubtedly an all-India phenomenon in the sense that there are everywhere hereditary, endogamous groups which form a hierarchy, and that each of these groups has a traditional association with one or two occupations” (Srinivas 1966 : 3). There are mainly two models of the caste system: ‘varna’ and ‘jati’ (Srinivas 1984 ). Varna is the Vedic classification of the four ranked occupational orders: Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaishya (trader and agriculturist), and Shudra (menial). Jati is a purely local system of ranked, hereditary, and endogamous groups, each associated with one or more traditional occupations. While the number of varnas is invariant, the number of interdependent jatis can vary from a minimum of 10 to about 30 even in a small region. The term jati can be applied to a group of castes, a caste, a subcaste, or a subdivision of a subcaste (Beteille 1967 ). Tribes have generally remained outside the varna system. These groups have some similarities with jatis in the sense that almost all tribals are endogamous. These tribe communities have a belief of hierarchy based on descent, ecology, ranking and status (Deshpande 2011 : 20–21).

Caste is considered as the most pervasive parameter differentiating the Indian society. The caste system is the primary source of social stratification (Deshpande 2011 ). Since historic times, caste community has been considered as a vital socio-economic institution (Beteille 2007 ). Though caste is determined on the basis of birth, it results in determining the distribution of human and physical capital, occupation, power and social status (Dhesi 1996 ). It is believed to be responsible for major inequalities in access to broad areas such as education, health, jobs and technology (Das and Dutta 2007 ). The presence of discrimination may result in distorting households’ decisions related to labor allocation and human capital investment (Ito 2009 ). India has remarkably low levels of occupational and spatial mobility. Caste-based labor market networks have locked entire groups of individuals into narrow occupational categories for generations. Historical occupation patterns induced by the caste-based networks carry on shaping occupational choice and therefore schooling choice for the boys (Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006 , 2009 ). Both SCs and STs have low educational attainment (years of schooling) as well as high inequality in educational attainment (Agrawal 2013a ). For instance, the average attainment in 2004–05 for STs, SCs and the remaining population was 2.76, 3.39 and 5.29 years, respectively. SCs/STs habitations are, on average, considerably smaller than of those from the rest. Schools situated in SCs/STs habitations have very few teachers than those in upper caste habitations, and they are more likely to be characterized by ‘multi-grade teaching’ (Kochar 2007 ).

This paper analyzes wage discrimination between gender and social (caste) groups in India using a set of simple models of wage determination. The term ‘caste’ in this paper refers to four broad caste divisions or social groups. These are SCs, STs, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and ‘Others’. The last group includes those not covered in the first three. We also examine the gender differences in Non-Scheduled Castes/Tribes (NSC), and Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST). Most studies examine wage discrimination either between gender groups or between social groups in the rural or urban sectors. In this paper, we examine wage discrimination separately for the gender as well as for social groups in both the rural and urban sectors. The labor market conditions in India differ very much across the two sectors. For example, in rural India a large workforce is engaged in agricultural and allied activities. A separate examination of the rural and urban sectors may be helpful in identifying some of the important factors relating to gender and castes, and may provide inputs to rural and urban development policies. The analysis in the paper is based on a nationally representative dataset, namely, India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2005.

The paper is organized as follows. The next section provides a brief overview of literature on wage discrimination in India. Section three gives a general idea of economic models of discrimination. Section four presents methodology and outlines the decomposition method. Section five gives a brief note on the database. Section six discusses the results on decomposition. Section seven provides plausible explanations for our results based on the existing literature. The final section concludes and offers some policy implications.

2 Literature review

There have been a number of empirical studies on wage discrimination for both industrialized and developing economies. In India too, there are various studies on labor market and some of them attempt to examine labor market discrimination. Most studies on wage discrimination in the Indian labor market are based on data from different rounds of surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO). Divakaran ( 1996 ), Deshpande and Deshpande ( 1997 ), Kingdon ( 1997 and 1998 ), Kingdon and Unni ( 2001 ), and Bhaumik and Chakrabarty ( 2008 ) examine gender-based discrimination. Banerjee and Knight ( 1985 ) and Madheswaran and Attewell ( 2007 ) examine caste-based discrimination for urban labor market; Gaiha et al. ( 2007 ) for rural India; Ito ( 2009 ) for the rural sector of North India; and Kijima ( 2006 ) and Das and Dutta ( 2007 ) for all India. Deshpande ( 2001 ) examines regional variations in inter-caste disparity using a caste deprivation index. Thorat and Attewell ( 2007 ) examine job discrimination in private sector enterprises using a field experiment. Deshpande ( 2011 ), and Thorat and Newman ( 2010 ) provide a comprehensive study on caste system and discrimination in India.

A study by Kingdon ( 1998 ) suggests that there exists pro-male bias in investment in education by parents. Females face poor economic incentives to investment in education than males since they reap lower labor market returns to education than males. The study also finds a substantial bias in the estimates of the rates of return to education if family background is ignored. In another study, Kingdon and Unni ( 2001 ) find that women experience high levels of wage discrimination in the Indian urban labor market. However, they find that education contributes little to this discrimination. A study by Bhaumik and Chakrabarty ( 2008 ) using two rounds of the NSSO’s employment-unemployment survey finds that the gender wage gap narrowed considerably between years 1987 and 1999. The narrowing of the earnings gap was attributed largely to a rapid increase in the returns to the labor market experience of women.

As regards to caste-based discrimination, Madheswaran and Attewell ( 2007 ) find that SC/ST workers are discriminated against both in the public and private sectors. However, the discrimination effect is more pronounced in the private sector. The study uses the standard Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method and data from the NSSO’s employment and unemployment surveys. Kijima ( 2006 ) offers a comparative analysis of disparity in living standards (measured using monthly per capita expenditure) among SC, ST and non-ST/SC households. The study uses the Neumark’s wage decomposition method and the data from four rounds of the NSSO’s survey (1983, 1987, 1993 and 1999). The findings from the study show that about half of the welfare disparities between the SCs and the non-SCs/STs and two-thirds of the disparities between the STs and the non-SCs/STs are due to differences in characteristics. The characteristic disparities between the STs and the non-SCs/STs are largely due to education and location differences. Further, there was little change in the contribution of the structural (returns) component between the SCs/STs and the non-SCs/STs during the period 1983 to 1999.

A study by Das and Dutta ( 2007 ) suggests that caste is still an influential factor in deciding how individuals are remunerated in the wage labor market. The study is based on data from 61st round (2004–05) of the NSSO’s survey. They find that the extent of the wage gap is significant (about 0.37 log points) in case of regular workers, and one-third of the gap is attributable to unequal treatment of scheduled caste workers relative to general caste workers. Further, the wage gap among casual workers is very low and mainly accounted for by differences in characteristics. Thorat and Attewell ( 2007 ) examine the prevalence of discrimination in the job application process of private sector enterprises using a field experiment. They find that companies discriminate by caste and religion while hiring job applicants with equal qualifications.

In a recent study, Motiram and Singh ( 2012 ) examine intergenerational occupational mobility for different caste groups using transition matrices and the data from the IHDS 2005. Their findings suggest considerable rigidity in class positions, particularly for the lower classes. The study finds that mobility is higher in urban areas as compared to rural areas since there is considerable occupational diversity in urban areas. The persistence in high status occupations (viz., professionals, officials and related) is lower for the SCs/STs than for non-SCs/STs. On the contrary, persistence in occupations that are at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy (viz., such as agricultural laborers and elementary occupations) is much higher for the SCs/STs than for non-SCs/STs. They also document considerable downward mobility of the SCs/STs and show that this is higher for SCs/STs than that for non-SCs/STs. Footnote 2

3 Economic models of discrimination

Economic models of discrimination can broadly be classified into two classes: (i) competitive models in which agents act individually, and (ii) collective models in which groups act collectively against each other (Altonji and Blank 1999 : 3168). In general, economic analysis has focused on competitive models which underline two broad types of discrimination. The first is “taste-based discrimination” and the second, “statistical discrimination”.

Becker ( 1957 ) in his pioneering work introduced the first economic model of discrimination which explains discrimination by a “taste for discrimination”. What it implies is that discriminators are willing to forgo an extra pay in order to have the group they preferred compared to an equally productive unfavorable group. Becker identified three distinct forms of discrimination in a competitive framework: employer, employee (or coworker) and customer. Some employers hold a taste for discrimination, they think that women (or minority group) are less productive. Footnote 3 The discriminating employer in this case is unwilling to hire them unless women or minority workers themselves ‘compensate’ employers by accepting a lower wage (a wage below the wage paid to men) for identical productivity or by being more productive at a given wage. Employee discrimination exists when employers discriminate in a situation when other employees do not prefer to work with colleague of the opposite sex or minority workers. Consumer discrimination occurs when consumers are not willing to purchase goods and service (for example, stores) from members of a certain group and instead prefer to pay a higher price. In this case employers discriminate not because of their own tastes but because of their customers’ tastes. One of the important results emerging from Becker’s work is that in the long run discrimination by employers should decline since it is not economically efficient. His theory suggests that competition will increase the relative demand for minority workers only in the economies where employers have a taste for discrimination.

The statistical discrimination models have been advanced by Arrow ( 1972 ), Phelps ( 1972 ), and Aigner and Cain ( 1977 ). Contrary to the ‘taste-based’ discrimination, these models assume no prejudice by employers. Rather women (and minority group) earn lower wages because these groups on average have lower productivity. Statistical models are based on the assumption that firms have limited information about the skills of applicants. Employers make decision in the absence of full information, since it is costly and difficult to acquire full information on job applicants. Thus, the firms use observable characteristics (such as gender or race) as a signal of productivity provided that these characteristics are correlated with productivity. In other words, if employers believe that women (or minority group) are on average less productive than men, they use gender or race as a screening device to which an individual belongs while hiring or pay decisions. In turn, they pay minority group a lower wage rate than majority group with identical observable skills. The literature on statistical discrimination has two main strands (Altonji and Blank 1999 : 3180–3181). The first strand of literature looks how prior beliefs about the productivity of group members can influence hiring and pay decisions. This issue is addressed by Arrow (1973). The second strand of literature analyzes the consequences of group differences in the precision of the information that employers have about individual productivity. This issue is addressed by Aigner and Cain ( 1977 ).

4 Methodology

4.1 general.

The unit of analysis for examining economic discrimination could be: (a) the household or family where the disparity between two subgroups is usually measured by income; or (b) the individual worker where the appropriate unit for examining disparities is wage rates or earnings (Cain 1986 ). The focus of this paper is on the second type of analysis since we are interested in examining labor market discrimination. There are two approaches that are mostly applied for examining wage discrimination between population sub-groups (gender or caste/race) (Darity and Mason 1998 ). The first involves estimation of a standard ‘Mincer’ type earnings/wage function (Mincer 1974 ) in a single equation form presuming a similar wage structure for both the groups (male and female). Thus the coefficients of all the explanatory variables remain the same for both males and females and difference between the two groups is captured through a gender dummy. A negative and statistically significant coefficient on the gender dummy (if male is the reference category) can be interpreted as an evidence of discrimination against women. The second approach involves decomposition of the wage function by estimating two wage regressions for the two groups. The latter allows explanatory variables to vary across the groups and decomposes the wage gap into two components: a portion explained by the average group differences in productivity characteristics (endowments) and an unexplained portion which is attributable to labor market discrimination. We apply the conventional Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method to decompose the average wage gap.

4.2 Wage decomposition

The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method (Blinder 1973 ; Oaxaca 1973 ) can be explained as follows. Assume that there are two groups A (advantaged) and B (disadvantaged). The wage equation for each group can be written as:

where W is the natural logarithm of wages (hourly), X is a vector of explanatory variables (productivity characteristics), and ε is a random error term. The vector of explanatory variables controls for human capital, demographic and various other characteristics of individuals.

The OLS estimation of the above equations can be expressed as:

The bars denote mean values of the variables and the hats denote OLS estimates. The difference in average wage rates between the two groups can be expressed as:

If the disadvantaged group is given the same wage structure as the advantaged group (in the absence of wage discrimination) then their average wage would be given as:

By ( 5 ) and ( 6 ), the overall average wage gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged groups can be expressed as:

The first term on the right-hand side of the above equation is generally referred to as the ‘endowment’ effect or ‘explained’ component which is the part of the wage differential due to average differences in productivity characteristics of individuals of group A and group B . The second term is referred to as the ‘treatment’ or ‘unexplained’ (residual) component. The unexplained component shows difference in the returns to similar characteristics (the contribution of differences in the coefficients) between groups A and B . This component is often interpreted as a measure of wage discrimination. However, the second term also captures the effects of differences in unobserved variables (omitted explanatory variables).

The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition could suffer from ‘index number problem’, i.e., choice of the non-discriminatory wage structure. The above decomposition is carried out from group A ’s (say male) perspective, i.e., we assume that without discrimination the male wage structure applied for males and females. To account for the index number problem, decomposition methods based on other reference wage structures (female wages or using weighted combination of male and female wages) are used. Footnote 4 Therefore, to understand sensitivity of results, we use the wage structure of both the groups. The decomposition equation using the reference wage structure of the second group can be written as:

It may be noted that the above alternative decomposition can produce quite different results than that from ( 7 ).

4.3 Heckman sample selection model

The estimation of the wage equation may suffer from problem of sample selection bias in the presence of non-randomly selected samples because of which the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the wage equation may be biased and inconsistent. A typical example is the women component in the labor supply. To account for the sample selection bias we employ the Heckman correction method (Heckman 1979 ). The method involves estimation in two stages: the first step is to estimate a selection equation which determines the probability of labor force participation. After the estimation of the selection equation we get the inverse Mills ratio (selectivity term). The inverse Mills ratio ( λ ) is defined as the ratio of the probability density function to the cumulative distribution function of a distribution ( \(\hat{\lambda_{i}} = \frac{\phi ( z_{i} \hat{\varphi} )}{\varPhi ( z_{i} \hat{\varphi} )}\) , where z is a vector of control variables used in the selection equation, and i =1,…, n indicates the number of individuals). The second step involves estimating a wage equation by OLS using the inverse Mills ratio as an additional regressor. The selectivity term added to the wage equation measures the sample selection effect due to the lack of observations on the earnings of non-participants (Dolton and Makepeace 1986 ). Footnote 5

To address the sample selection problem appropriately, it is important to find some identifying variables (exclusion restrictions) that affect the selection equation but can be excluded from the wage equation. In literature, non-labor income (Duraisamy 2002 ; Asadullah 2006 ), household size (Dutta 2006 ), number of dependents children in a household (Dutta 2006 ; Kingdon and Theopold 2008 ), number of elderly aged 65 and above (Dutta 2006 ; Kingdon and Theopold 2008 ), and land ownership (Asadullah 2006 ; Kingdon and Theopold 2008 ) have been used as potential exclusion restrictions. Households with land ownership and non-labor income are less likely to attach with wage employment.

After considering the sample selection, the selectivity adjusted wage decomposition equation can be written as follows:

where θ denotes the covariance between the errors in the selection and wage equations (in each group A and B ).

5 Data and variables

This paper draws the data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2005. The survey was conducted during 2004–05. This dataset is produced by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi, and the University of Maryland. The IHDS is a nationally representative survey of 41,554 households in 1503 villages and 971 urban neighborhoods across India. These households include 215,754 individuals. The IHDS was conducted in 33 states and Union Territories of India except the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Lakshadweep. These states cover 384 districts, 1503 villages and 971 urban blocks located in 276 towns and cities. Villages and urban blocks form the primary sampling unit (PSU) from which the households have been selected. Urban and rural PSUs are selected using a different design (Desai et al. 2010 ).

The survey has a rich amount of information on household and individual levels characteristics. The household characteristics include information on household residence (rural or urban sector, and state of residence), household size, membership of a social group and religion. The individual characteristics include information on age, educational attainment, gender, occupation, marital status and relation to household head. The survey also has information on wages and salaries, household income, components of household income: farm income, income from interests, dividend or capital gains; property, pension, income from other sources etc.

5.2 Variables

5.2.1 dependent variables.

The dependent variable selected for the wage equation is the natural logarithm of hourly wage. Footnote 6 For the sake of robustness, the wage distribution is trimmed by 0.1 percent at the top and bottom tails of the distribution.

If an individual works for more than or equal to 240 hours in a year, he/she is considered as part of the workforce. Footnote 7 The dependent variable of probit (selection) equation takes a value 1 if an individual is part of the workforce, and 0 otherwise.

5.2.2 Independent variables

Human-capital variables An individual is classified under one of the following six educational levels: illiterate (also includes below primary), primary, middle, secondary, higher secondary, and graduate. It is assumed that an individual spends 0, 5, 3, 2, 2 and 3 additional years, respectively in these educational levels. Experience is captured through potential experience which is a proxy for the actual experience. The potential experience is defined as age minus numbers of year of schooling minus five. Footnote 8

Demographic variables

Demographic controls are sex, place of residence (rural or urban sector), membership of a social group, marital status, and state control. All these are used as dummy variables. Each household belongs to one of the following social groups: Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and ‘Others’. As discussed, SCs and STs are two historically disadvantaged groups in India and while examining gender differences in social groups we regroup them into two groups: NSC (OBCs and Others), and SC/ST (SCs and STs). State dummies are also included to capture the state-specific variations.

Family background

Family background is captured through household head’s education. Footnote 9 Education of household head is classified into the following five categories: illiterate (and below primary), primary, middle, secondary (secondary and higher secondary), and graduate.

Exclusion restrictions

The identifying variables included in the selection equation for correcting sample selection are household size and the number of children (aged less than 15) in a household. Both the variables are continuous variables. In addition to these, we use household land possession for the rural sector, and non-labor income of an individual or household for the urban sector as identifying variables. Both these variables are being used as a dummy variable. Footnote 10 The non-labor income includes income from renting property and/or income from interest, dividends, or capital gains. We do not use the variable household land possession for the urban sector because as suggested by Dutta ( 2006 ) it is not a reasonable restriction in the urban context. We expect negative signs on the household size and non-labor income since individuals living in larger households and/or with non-labor income are less likely to enter in wage employment whereas a positive sign on the number of children in a household since individuals in a household with more number of dependents (children) are more likely to seek wage work (Agrawal 2012 ).

The study is restricted for the working age population aged 15 to 65. A separate analysis for the rural and urban sectors is carried out since labor market conditions in India differ across the two sectors. Appendix 1 (online) provides description of all the variables used in the analysis.

6.1 Descriptive statistics

Table  1 gives the mean and the standard deviation of the variables used in the Heckman estimation. The table shows that the people residing in the rural sector earn about one-half the wages on an hourly basis than those in the urban sector. Educational differences in the two sectors are also large. Individuals in the rural sector have low educational attainment and a substantial proportion does not even have formal schooling. Whereas in the urban sector individuals have high educational levels; particularly, the proportion of the individuals with graduation is quite high in the urban sector than that in the rural sector. The table also shows large differences in educational attainment between NSC and SC/ST. For instance, more than 50 percent population of SC/ST is illiterate or has below primary education in the rural sector compared to 36 percent in the urban sector.

Figure  1 presents kernel density estimates of the distributions of log hourly wages for males and females in the age group 15–65 years. The wage distribution for female population is skewed towards the lower tail. Among the social groups, except for the ‘Others’, the wage distributions for the remaining groups are skewed towards the lower tail (Fig.  2 ). While the distribution for ‘Others’ group nearly approximates the normal distribution, the distribution for SCs has a long peak, and the distribution of OBCs follows that of the SCs but with less peakedness. The distribution of STs is bimodal with two long peaks.

Wage distribution by gender groups

Wage distribution by social groups

6.2 Male-female wage discrimination

Table  2 shows decomposition of the augmented earnings function for the gender groups using the Blinder–Oaxaca method. Footnote 11 The table reports selectivity-corrected estimates separately for the rural and urban sectors. Footnote 12 The block 1 of the table shows the mean log hourly wages for the two groups. The mean log hourly wage for men is 2.09 and 2.75 in rural and urban populations, respectively. The corresponding values for women are 1.41 and 2.21. Thus, there is a wage gap of 0.68 (log points) in the rural population and 0.54 in the urban population between males and females groups.

We notice that the raw gender wage gap is more pronounced in the rural sector than that in the urban. In the rural sector, women are mainly employed in agriculture and related occupations. Though the wages in these occupations are low for both men and women in general, but women are more likely to work with much lower wages than men. On the other side, in the urban sector women are employed in other occupations such as professional and clerical and the wages between men and women remain comparable. Further, one can expect more bargaining power of women in the urban sector than that in the rural sector.

In the block 2, the raw wage differential is divided into two components: the differences in endowments and the differences in coefficients, using the wage structure of males as the reference wage structure. We find that the discrimination component (coefficients) is larger than the endowment component in both the rural and urban sectors. This suggests that the wage difference between males and females is largely because of discrimination in the labor market. The differences in endowments account for 33 and 19 percent wage gap in the rural and urban populations, respectively whereas discrimination explains 67 and 81 percent of the total wage differential. The block 3 of the table shows the decomposition results using the females wage structure as the reference wage structure. The proportion of wage differential in the rural sector due to endowments is 39 percent and the remaining 61 percent can be attributed to discrimination whereas in the urban sector these figures are 15 and 85 percent, respectively.

An intriguing observation is that the proportion of discrimination component is higher in the urban sector than that in the rural sector. However, this does not necessarily indicate that women in the urban sector suffer more discrimination compared to those in the rural. In the rural sector, human capital differences between men and women are much larger as compared to the same in the urban sector. For instance, we find that the proportions of graduate men and women in the rural sector are 4.7 and 1.5 percent respectively whereas in the urban sector the same proportions are 19.4 and 19.3 percent. Footnote 13 It has also been documented that the distribution of education is more unequal in rural areas of the country as compared to that in urban areas (Agrawal 2013b ). However, the entire unexplained component cannot be considered as discriminatory. This is because the data does not adequately capture some human capital differences between men and women. Many women remain out of the labor force because of various reasons such as household and child bearing activities. Even if they are employed, they typically work fewer hours per week than men (Kingdon 1998 ).

It is worthwhile to mention that findings from a meta-analysis on the gender wage gap by Weichselbaumer and Winter-Ebmer ( 2005 ) suggest that the raw gender wage differentials worldwide have fallen from 65 percent to 30 percent between the 1960s to the 1990s. Most of this decrease is attributed to better labor market endowments of females. The above figures from the meta-analysis however suggest that the incidence of the raw gender wage gap is much higher in India. A study by Blau and Lawrence ( 2003 ) using micro-data from the International Social Survey Programme for 22 countries over the 1985–94 period finds that countries with more compressed male wage structures (a narrower male earnings distribution) and lower female net supply are associated with a lower gender pay gap.

6.3 Gender wage discrimination across social groups

Next we examine the gender wage differential in NSC and SC/ST groups separately. The decomposition of the gender wage differential for both NSC and SC/ST is presented in the Table  2 . Interestingly, we note that the gender wage differential in NSC group is higher than the same in SC/ST group in the rural sector but is smaller in the urban sector. Across the two sectors, the wage differential in each group (NSC or SC/ST) is higher in the rural sector than in the urban sector. A large part of the wage differential is explained by the discrimination component for both NSC and SC/ST in both the sectors. These findings remain consistent irrespective of the reference being the male wage structure or the female wage structure.

6.4 Wage discrimination between NSC and SC/ST

In Table  3 , we present the decomposition of the wage differential between NSC and SC/ST. Footnote 14 We notice a wage gap of 0.21 in the rural sector and 0.31 in the urban. The wage gap is more pronounced in the urban sector than in the rural sector. Using the wage structure of NSC, we find that 62 percent of the total wage differential in the rural sector could be attributed to group differences in the characteristics and the remaining 38 percent could be attributed to discrimination. The same figures in the urban sector are 69 and 31, respectively. Therefore, discrimination between social groups is higher in the rural sector as compared to the same in urban sector. In a similar type of study, Madheswaran and Attewell ( 2007 ) using the NSSO’s data of 1999–2000 find that endowment explains 79 percent and discrimination explains 21 percent of the lower wages of scheduled castes (SCs and STs) as compared to non-scheduled castes in the urban labor market. However, it is also important to note that the difference in endowments itself may be a result of past discrimination which cannot be measured directly.

7 Discussion

Some interesting facts emerge from the preceding section. Why does discrimination explain a large part of the wage differential for gender groups and not for social groups? Why is it that the disadvantaged groups are worse-off in the rural sector than in the urban sector? These questions could be explained mainly by the large human capital differences among these groups and across the two sectors. It may be noted that gender and caste are two different entities. A large share of the SC/ST population lives in villages which often lack the educational infrastructure whereas the residents of urban areas are relatively well off as the infrastructure is easily available and accessible. The quality of education across the two sectors may also account for part of the unexplained differential in the two sectors. Further, occupational distribution of social groups is quite different across the two sectors. For instance, the share of regular wage workers is high in the urban sector whereas casual workers dominate the rural sector, and the share of each social group also varies in these employment categories.

The large difference in educational attainment between caste groups is an important cause of inequality in employment status (Ito 2009 ). Some of these groups have high incidence of illiteracy. ST population stays in villages where well-paid jobs are less available and, as a consequence, they are likely to get less returns to formal schooling which deters their investment in formal schooling (Kijima 2006 ). Though the occupational structure has undergone a profound change over time, caste divisions have remained more or less the same (Deshpande 2000 ). A major section of the SC/ST population is concentrated in the primary occupations such as farm, fish, hunt and log (Deshpande 2001 ). These two groups are disproportionately clustered in the lower ladder of occupations: casual labor, agricultural labor and unemployed whereas the upper castes dominate the more prestigious and better-paying occupations (Deshpande 2011 ).

Spatial location and schools could also explain caste discrimination in labor market. Borjas ( 1995 ) in the context of the US shows that residential segregation and the external effect of ethnicity are linked partly because ethnic capital summarizes the socioeconomic background of the neighborhood where the children are raised. Neighborhoods isolate people of similar backgrounds and promote a set of cultural attitudes, social contacts, and economic opportunities that affect individuals throughout their lives. Social networks show an underlying segregation (Deshpande 2000 ). In India, upper and lower caste intermarriage is rare and the practice of ‘untouchability’ is still continued mainly in rural areas.

The large endowment difference, observed in the case of social groups, suggests that pre-labor market discriminatory practices with respect to education, health, and nutrition are more crucial in explaining wage differentials than labor market discrimination (Madheswaran and Attewell 2007 ). However, it may be noted that the whole part of discrimination component cannot be attributed to current discrimination. It has been argued that unequal labor market outcomes have their roots in discrimination in the past that has caused more harm to deprived backgrounds of the disadvantaged workers. Pre-labor market discrimination affects earnings indirectly by means of lower out of school investments, poor quality of education, field of study, accessibility to higher education, poorer nutrition and health status, and lower social capital. These may result in lower endowments and persistent wage differentials over time (Altonji and Blank 1999 ; Das and Dutta 2007 ). Further, the discrimination in access to schooling and to wage employment cannot be controlled for and explained through this analysis.

8 Conclusions and policy implications

This paper examines wage discrimination between gender groups and between social groups in India using a nationally representative household survey. We use the traditional Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method corrected for the sample selection bias. We find a strong picture of the wage differential between males and females, and between social groups. The wage gap is more pronounced in the rural sector than in the urban sector. The decomposition analysis shows that the wage gap between males and females is largely because of discrimination in the labor market. This result remains valid when we separately examine gender differences in NSC and SC/ST groups. However, the wage differential between NSC and SC/ST is due to the differences in endowments.

A large part of the wage differential between males and females, which is due to discrimination, indicates that human capital of females could not be realized as completely as that of males. Policies should be planned for more accessible employment opportunities for females. Equal employment opportunities and anti-discriminations legislations should be followed strictly. Policies should also be aimed to encourage women’s education particularly in rural areas. Kingdon ( 1998 ) advocates that policies to discourage gender-discrimination in the labor market will increase the rates of return to females’ education and enhance their incentives to invest in education. Educating females has some other benefits like reduced infant mortality and lower fertility. A large endowments difference between social groups indicates that there is a need to promote educational opportunities for socially backward sections of the population. The government should also ensure that the disadvantaged groups of the society get full participation in schooling as they have high incidence of illiteracy. Therefore, policies should be aimed to reduce inequalities in access to education.

The Indian constitution provides for affirmative action policies for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

In the intergenerational context, downward mobility means children moving to a lower socio-economic position compared to their parents.

It is worth mentionable that Becker’s discussion generally referred to race (blacks and whites) discrimination.

There are various other decomposition methods which are similar to the Blinder-Oaxaca method but use different alternative wage structure. To understand some of them, consider β ∗ as a non-discriminatory reference wage structure given by: β ∗ = Ωβ A +( I − Ω ) β B where Ω is a weighting matrix and I , an identity matrix. As discussed, Oaxaca ( 1973 ) proposes the use of either the current male wage structure ( Ω = I ) or the current female wage structure ( Ω =0). Reimers ( 1983 ) proposes the weighting matrix Ω =0.5 I . Cotton ( 1988 ) chooses the weighting matrix Ω =0.5 I w I , where I w is the fraction of the sample made up by the majority group, since the non-discriminatory structure should be similar to the structure that holds for the larger group. However, neither of these solutions is completely satisfactory as each chooses the weight in an arbitrary manner (Oaxaca and Ransom 1994 ). Neumark ( 1988 ) uses a least squares criterion to estimate β ∗ from the pooled sample of males and females, i.e., β ∗ =( X ′ X ) −1 ( X ′ Y )where \(X ' X= X_{A} ' X_{A} + X_{B} ' X_{B}\) . Oaxaca and Ransom ( 1994 ) propose adoption of the weighting matrix \(\varOmega =( X ' X )^{-1} ( X_{A} ' X_{A} )\) where both X ′ X and \(X '_{A} X_{A}\) are positive definite matrices. X , X A and X B are the observed matrices for the pooled, group A and group B sample, respectively. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to use all the alternative wage structure.

In the wage regression analysis, adjustment of sample-selection bias using the Heckman two step procedure has become standard practice. However, this approach has been criticized and not always advisable (see Puhani 2000 for discussion). Puhani ( 2000 : 65) concludes that “the cases where the need to correct for selectivity bias are largest are those with a high correlation between the error terms of the selection and the outcome equation, and those with a high degree of censoring. Unfortunately, though, as the Monte Carlo analyses show, in exactly those cases Heckman’s estimator is particularly inefficient and subsample OLS may therefore be more robust”. In this paper, we therefore report results from both the OLS and the Heckman estimations.

In the IHDS survey, for each member of the household the following questions were asked. For how many days did individual do work last year? How many hours did individual work in a usual day? How much was individual paid in cash for that work? The latter information could be expressed on a daily, monthly, or annual basis and accordingly it is also converted on a monthly basis.

This criterion is based on work participation measure used in the IHDS data.

We assume that an individual starts schooling at the age of five and starts working immediately after that (Agrawal 2012 ; Duraisamy 2002 ).

In case the household head is an observation, his/her father’s education is used.

We group both land possession and non-labor income into four categories. We do not use them as a continuous variable since in the data we observe that quite a high proportion of households do not possess agriculture land or do not have non-labor income.

In the results section, we only report the decomposition results. The detailed regression results on which the decomposition results are based are provided in online Appendix 2 for the rural sector and in online Appendix 3 for the urban sector.

The OLS estimates are provided in online Appendix 4.

Beside this, a large proportion of women in the rural sector (in our sample of individuals aged between 15–65 years) either does not have schooling or has education up to below primary level.

The OLS estimates are provided in online Appendix 5.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Sripad Motiram, S. Chandrasekhar, Ankush Agrawal and Edgar Baake for comments and suggestions. I am grateful to two anonymous referees of this journal for providing insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Institutional support provided by Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

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Agrawal, T. Gender and caste-based wage discrimination in India: some recent evidence. J Labour Market Res 47 , 329–340 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12651-013-0152-z

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Caste and Race: Discrimination Based on Descent

In 2001, Dalit non-governmental organisations pushed for the inclusion of caste-based discrimination in the United Nations conference on racism and other forms of descent-based discriminations. How did the Government of India respond to the internationalisation of casteism? Why did Dalits want casteism to be treated on par with racism in the first place? Did they succeed? And above all, is caste the same as race?

History,  wrote  Kanthi Swaroop and Joel Lee, has taught us that epidemics are provocateurs of “extraordinary collective action,” which, more often than not, translate to “scapegoating and mass violence” against the marginalised. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point. The pre-existing marginalisation and discrimination faced by Dalits, especially Dalit women, are increasing during the pandemic with several states witnessing a rise in caste-based atrocities.

Smita M Patil  noted  that just five months into the lockdown, there were 81 caste-based atrocities reported in Tamil Nadu. Multiple cases of caste-based atrocities against Dalit women were also reported in Uttar Pradesh, with one such incident making  headlines  for how the state government handled the crime.

On 29 September 2020, India once again failed Dalit women and girls in upholding their rights and safety; we have lost another young life to a savage, brutal gang rape and murder. This barbaric incident occurred on 14 September in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and once again exposed the harsh realities of caste-based sexual assault faced by Dalit women and girls in this country.

V A Ramesh Nathan and Vimal Thorat   wrote that in  Hathras  itself, between August and September 2020, “more than six atrocities were reported in the district against Dalit women and minor girls.”

Every case reveals that the state machinery has turned a blind eye towards the cases through its apathetic response, violated rights of victims to access justice and has nullified human dignity. In the Hathras case, the victim’s brother mentioned that no arrest was made by the police even after 10 days of the incident being reported.

Atrocities against Dalits continue to be underreported, underestimated and sidelined. Even in 2001, Shiv Visvanathan  wrote  how the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report ranked India as a “progressive” country as “growth in information technology” was a factor it considered in its ranking system but atrocities against Dalits was not.

For every Dalit atrocity (sic) , maybe there is a story of mobility or a happy narrative on electoralism. But, the politics is clear. The way one tells the story is the way of one’s political choices. But, there is another question. Is internationalising caste only ‘political mischief’? Is it a form of disgust for the nation or can one love one’s country and still go to the UN.

But why internationalise caste? As Visvanathan wrote, in Indian politics, there is “little” space for Dalit discourse. He explains further: 

Maybe what Dalit discourse needs to do is distinguish between a Dalit and a Mandalist perspective on caste exploring similarities but more importantly differences. One is forced to manoeuvre for international attention because only external politics might be able to leverage current paradigms.

The “international attention” that Visvanathan was referring to is the 2001 United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance , where Dalits  claimed  that caste should be treated like race as “caste is race in India.”

A S Narang  explained  that the Durban conference, as the event came to be called, was the third UN World Conference to focus on the issues of racism, xenophobia, and religious and ethnic intolerance. The first two conferences, held in Geneva in 1978 and 1983, focused on “ending apartheid in South Africa,” and the Durban conference was about developing strategies to combat “contemporary forms of racism and intolerance.”

In the previous conferences, India considered itself the “official advocate condemning racism, colonialism, apartheid,” a role that Visvanathan  wrote , was “threatened” from within when Dalit groups claimed that “caste should be treated like race.”

As the conference focused on the various manifestations of racism, Dalit groups stood up against caste-based discriminations and, in Ambrose Pinto’s  words , “attacked the present fundamentalist and fascist Hindu government that is bent upon perpetuating the caste system in the name of Hindu revivalism.” The government in  question  was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Why did Dalit activists want caste to be legally seen as an element of race? Is caste-based discrimination the same as racism? Is casteism an element of racism? Or is caste “race plus”? This reading list looks at the multiple debates on the issues of caste and race that were featured in the pages of EPW before, during and after the 2001 Durban conference.

Caste is Race

As a member state of the United Nations, India signed agreements to eradicate discrimination on the basis of race, descent, and occupation. Thus, wrote Pinto, it was only natural that the issues of caste-based discrimination be raised and addressed in the Durban conference. 

Dalit groups have refused to accept that caste is restricted only to India. Caste is prevalent all over south Asia especially in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The Burakumin in Japan and Korea, Osu of Nigeria and similar ‘untouchable’ communities in other west African nations have also been experiencing discrimination. The UN therefore should discuss the issue. 

Documenting cases from across Pakistan, Haris Gazdar wrote that oppressed communities in Pakistan, as well, face everyday discrimination and exclusion. Yet, Pakistani society remains silent about caste-based discrimination.

“Caste” after all implies some legitimised “system” of the division of labour. The Oxford English dictionary calls it “any of the hereditary Hindu social classes; any exclusive social class”. The common translation in Pakistani languages is zaat, which is not about social class but related to ‘nasal’ (lineage), or quite literally, race.

In his article, “The Race for Caste,” Visvanathan wrote that Dalit non-governmental organisations (NGOs) believed caste-based discrimination has the same implications as racial discrimination. He mapped out the similarities between the Dalit experience in India and the apartheid in South Africa.

Untouchability is a “hidden apartheid” and what marks the similarity is the link between deprivation and distance. Segregation is a key characteristic of both. Fundamental to the grammar of “distance” are the notions of pollution, dirt, “touch.” Any form of closeness is repulsive or defiling. A defiance of segregation leads to violence.

A host of articles from July 2001 agree that caste and race are, if not the same, similar. Pinto recounted that several legislative measures relating to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes also equate caste and race.

The different definitions of caste adopted by the several decisions of the Supreme Court of India show that for the purposes of treating caste as a prohibited ground of discrimination, caste is race in the Indian context (K C Vasant Kumar vs state of Karnataka, 1985 (Supp)1 SCR 352). In the said decision, caste is even identified as a race or unit of race, as per the definition of caste accepted by Justice Venkataramaiah in the said case.

Besides, Visvanathan argued that caste is like race because of the lived experiences of Dalits—casteism “feels” like racism. But Visvanathan was also aware that only “narratives of feeling” would not do.

Not in a world of lawyers and bureaucrats. One must seek the right term. The caste/race equation is weak till they discover the third term in the legal text—descent. 

A life saving term. Descent is about blood and blood lines. It is hereditary. It is through descent that caste becomes synonymous with race.

Caste is Race Plus

Pinto, in his article, “UN Conference against Racism,”  explained that the central focus of the conference was on “descent- and occupation-based discrimination.” Caste, he wrote, is by descent as “it is the children of SCs/STs and other marginalised communities that are compelled to do all kinds of menial jobs like scavenging, sweeping, bonded labour, etc.”

But, Pinto also mentioned that several academics and representatives predominantly from the Dalit community hold that casteism is “worse” than racism. They made it clear that “caste is race plus” since caste was “inflicted by birth, sanctified by religion, [and] glorified by tradition.”

Further, Anand Teltumbde noted how a system where hierarchical superiority of people is based on the lightness of their skin means that “casteism easily transforms into racism abroad” with Whites being “quasi-Brahmins” and Black being “Dalits.”

P Thirumal, while reviewing Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Lies That Divide Us , wrote that Wilkerson also related caste and race as having a primary relationship with each other. “Caste and race are interchangeable in terms of their potential for human wrongdoing or evil.”

Whether biological, social, psychological, or spiritual, the immutability of caste to penetrate the varied dimensions of being is more elaborate and orders the cultural unconscious in ways that escape the fleshiness of thought.

Wilkerson, Thirumal wrote, goes a step further and holds that caste is not solely based on religious texts and social practices, but it is the “air of superiority” that is at play when dominant castes interact with the lower castes.

Race stands for a mode or attribute of caste and the latter remains the more encompassing, generative and invisible infrastructure that tacitly guides one’s orientation towards ideas, people, and objects.

Or as B R Ambedkar had put it, “caste is a state of mind.”

Caste is Not Race 

What was the government’s reaction to Dalits internationalising the issue of caste and comparing it to race? Pinto  reported :

[D]alit groups across the world backed with support from some international human rights organisations had fought a battle for the inclusion of caste into the official charter on race as a form of descent-based discrimination. They had lost their battle then due to the hostile attitude of the Indian government though they had succeeded in introducing the clause of caste discrimination in the United Nations NGO declaration.

The Indian government believed caste was “purely an internal matter” and that the international community had “no business” getting involved. Its “hostile attitude” has been pointed out by several authors. Some have called it “ hypocritical ,” stating that discrimination is discrimination and it must be acknowledged; others have called it “ dishonest and immoral ,” stating that caste-based discrimination fits perfectly in the conference’s focus on descent-based discrimination; still others have called it “ nefarious ,” stating that the agonising oppression faced by Dalits in India is no different than the racial violence faced by victims of the apartheid in South Africa. Above all, it was  believed that the violation of human rights “cannot be an internal matter of any country,” and since the UN is a “world government,” it has the  authority to put pressure on a state.

Pinto noted that “internal matter” aside, the Government of India held the position that caste is not race since caste is a social construct while race is a biological one. The extent to which this belief permeated Indian politics can be  seen in this line from Mohan Rao’s article, “‘Scientific’ Racism: A Tangled Skein.”

Ideas of race have also insidiously entered the construction of communalism in our country, while ideas of eugenics, the “science” of race, inform a number of policies related both to population programmes and reservations for the Dalits and back-ward classes. 

Moreover, Visvanathan noted that race being “biological” was not an old notion long forgotten, but one that has stuck around till fairly recently.

Eleven major universities in America taught race as a respectable scientific subject till the 1920s. Race has been interwoven with science over the last 50 years.

However, Teltumbde wrote , the very idea of humanity being divided on the basis of physical appearance is a social construct and not a scientific one. The very notion of race is “bogus.”

The idea of biological “race” has been discredited—the US government’s Human Genome Project has shown that there is no distinct genetic basis to racial types. Overwhelming scientific evidence exists to prove that race is not biological.

Pinto also noted that Ambedkarites and progressive Dalit academics have “never equated race with caste” which, according to Teltumbde, is because the caste system “defied” racial categorisation. But the “pseudo-scientific” notions of race and caste were still supported by the state for its national agendas. Rao continued : 

It is therefore not surprising that in India today Giriraj Kishore can proclaim that the life of a cow is worth that of five Dalits. It is not surprising simply because deeply anti-democratic, anti-poor and anti-women views wrapped in pseudo-sciences can indeed be freely and shamelessly aired.

Caste is an Element of Race

In May 2020, the death of George Floyd due to extra-legal police brutality brought debates on racism in the United States to a fever pitch. Smriti Singh  wrote how the words “I Can’t Breathe” came to symbolise the “suffocating” racial discrimination meted out by the establishment and the state towards the Black community.

One hundred and fifty-five years ago, slavery in the US was abolished. However, the 155 years of being colour-blind have not helped the deeply entrenched racial biases and prejudices that still shape the institutions of the state, judiciary, media, medicine and civil society. Slavery might have been abolished, racism might have been outlawed, but the institutions and structures that represent the US have yet to remove the Caucasian-coloured glasses through which their land appears free.

As Singh notes, the structural character of the American establishment is White. Can the same be said for India? Is the structural character of the Indian establishment Brahminical?

In 2015, months after the Charleston mass shooting where nine African-Americans were murdered during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (EAME) Church, Anupama Rao questioned the parallels,  connecting , as we have discussed before, the killings of Blacks in America to the caste-based atrocities faced by Dalits in India. 

Does the conjoint logic of exclusion and spectacularisation that has historically structured the lives of African–Americans bear any resemblance to the political life of caste in India today? Might we speculate that racial injustice in the US, though it is distinct from the peculiar character of caste, also shares something with it, namely, that the repetitive structure of violence against African–Americans, or Dalits is not merely instrumental, but also symbolically overdetermined and purposive in character?

At the time when “Black Lives Matter” became the battlecry for racial justice in the West, in India, “Dalit Lives Matter” became its demonstrative equivalent. As Ujithra Ponniah  wrote , “Closer home, Dalit Lives Matter, though in its nascent stage, is enabling conversations that do not end up ghettoising the caste identity around Dalits.”

As we have seen before, even Wilkerson, in her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent , argued that race is built on the origins of caste. R Srivatsan recapitulates her arguments in his reflections on the book, writing that “race is a skin phenomenon, but caste is an infrastructure.” 

For her, race is a skin affair (“skin” also puns into a metaphorical sense meaning surface and not depth), but I think it should be conceptualised more precisely as a marker of difference, a rather obvious one. And if marking the other is one essential part of a caste stru­cture that generates/foments/condones/normalises oppressive conduct, colour of skin is one simple, direct, primitive signifier of caste just as birth or religion or gotra would be other non-obvious ones. 

P Thirumal’s review of Wilkerson’s book also ended on an appreciative note. “The replacement of Whites by dominant castes required exemplary creativity and forethought.” 

But this stand has been contested.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, reviewing Wilkerson’s book, wrote that, if race is like caste, it may be because, in fact, it is caste that descended from race.

Even in American and British anti-discrimination and equality laws, caste-based discrimination is not explicitly mentioned. In their provisions, caste is treated as an aspect of race.

Charisse Burden-Stelly, in her critique of Wilkerson’s book,  argues that the caste analogy for explaining race is “convenient” as it can be used as a “shorthand” for any form of subjugation.

As Anupama Rao reiterates Wilkerson’s argument in her review of the book, laws against racial discrimination deprived the term “racism” of “analytic purchase,” and as a result, the term was now denied and feared. Therefore, by renaming race as caste, systemic racism is rendered “unfamiliar” and made available for inquiry.

This begs the question, does not naming the enemy or renaming the enemy render it less unscrupulous? Does it undermine the grotesque horrors of what a people were subjected to, and are continued to be subjected to, by comparing it to another form of descent-based discrimination?

In his concluding passage of reviewing Wilkerson’s book, Srivatsan wrote that instead of merely seeing caste as skeleton and race as skin, we need to understand how, throughout history, the dialectic concepts of discrimination, exploitation and oppression have worked in tandem. 

Learning to unravel the tight braids of race as a form of describing difference and caste as a power hierarchy in our history may perhaps free the concept of race as a scientific category with a benign intent of describing more precisely propensity to illness, health, etc. This would permit critical evaluation of its validity without confusing it with immediately with caste oppression. For this to happen, the problem to be solved by the history of civilisation of course is this: how to signify difference without fear, resentment or arrogance?

The Debate of Decent-based Discrimination 

Coming back to the Durban discussion, until 2001, while committees under the UN stated that, in theory, caste would come under the purview of the Durban conference, they never actually used the word “caste.” Pinto  explained why. 

One of the major obstacles for gaining international recognition to the Dalit cause is the language of the UN. Being dominated by the West, the language, concepts and terms of the UN bodies have been europo-centric. The need is not only to bring the caste issue into the UN, but to put pressure on the UN to change its language so that the UN becomes representative of all countries and people. 

But in 2002, that changed. The United Nations Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) “strongly condemned” the practice of caste. Pinto believed this was due to the success of Dalit groups, using the publicity they received from the Durban conference, associating themselves with other discriminated groups from across the globe and fighting for their rights.

Teltumbde, however,  believed that “quibbling” over racism or casteism “only serves to deflect focus on discrimination” and that basic issues concerning human lives cannot and should not be “prevented from being internationalised.” 

It is not important to know in which precise way the human rights of certain people are being structurally violated; the issue is that they are violated.

A week before the Durban conference began, Pinto wrote that the Government of India “may scuttle the attempts” to raise the issue of caste in the UN conference. He was right. In conclusion, he wrote:

While Africans and Palestinians may demand compensation from colonisers what the Dalits in India need to assert is compensation from their caste masters who have oppressed them for centuries and continue to do so in the name of god and religion. 

Read more: 

• World Conference against Racism | A S Narang, 07 July 2001
• Caste, Race and Human Rights | M N Panini, 01 September 2001 
• World Conference on Racism | Samir Amin, 08 December 2001  
• Curry Bashing: Racism, Violence and Alien Space Invaders | Michiel Baas, 22 August 2009
• Important Similarities, Strange Differences: Caste, Race and Durban |  Kalpana Kannabiran, 10 July 2010

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Essay on Gender Discrimination

• Updated on  
• Jul 14, 2022

One of the challenges present in today’s society is gender discrimination. Gender discrimination is when someone is treated unequally based on their gender. Gender discrimination is not just present in the workplace but in schools, colleges and communities as well. As per the Civil Rights Act of 1964,  gender discrimination is illegal in India. This is also an important and common essay topic in schools and competitive exams such as IELTS , TOEFL , SAT , UPSC , etc. Let’s explore some samples of essay on gender discrimination and tips for writing an impactful essay.

Tips for Writing an Impactful Essay

If you want to write a scoring and deep impact essay, here are some tips for writing a perfect informative essay:

• The most important and first step is to write an introduction and background information about and related to the topic
• Then you are also required to use the formal style of writing and avoid using slang language
• To make an essay more impactful, write dates, quotations, and names to provide a better understanding
• You can use jargon wherever it is necessary as it sometimes makes an essay complicated
• To make an essay more creative, you can also add information in bulleted points wherever possible
• Always remember to add a conclusion where you need to summarise crucial points
• Once you are done read through the lines and check spelling and grammar mistakes before submission

Essay on Gender Discrimination in 200 Words

One of the important aspects of a democratic society is the elimination of gender discrimination. The root cause of this vigorous disease is the stereotypical society itself. When a child is born, the discrimination begins; if the child is male, he is given a car, bat and ball with blue, and red colour clothes, whereas when a child is female, she is given barbie dolls with pink clothes. We all are raised with a mentality that boys are good at sports and messy, but girls are not good at sports and are well organised. This discriminatory mentality has a deeper impact when girls are told not to work while boys are allowed to do much work. This categorising males and females into different categories discriminating based on gender are known as gender discrimination. Further, this discriminatory behaviour in society leads to hatred, injustice and much more. This gender discrimination is evident in every woman’s life at the workplace, in educational institutions, in sports, etc., where young girls and women are deprived of their rights and undervalued. This major issue prevailing in society can be solved only by providing equality to women and giving them all rights as given to men.

Essay on Gender Discrimination in 300 Words 

Gender Discrimination, as the term signifies, is discrimination or discriminatory behaviour based on gender. The stereotypical mindset of people in the past has led to the discrimination that women face today. According to Kahle Wolfe, in 2015, women earned 83% of the income paid to men by working the same hours. Almost all women are not only discriminated against based on their salaries but also on their looks.

Further, most women are allowed to follow a certain dress code depending upon the work field and the dress women wear also decides their future career.

This dominant male society teaches males that women are weak and innocent. Thus women are mostly victims and are targeted in crimes. For example, In a large portion of the globe, women are blamed for rapes despite being victims because of their clothes. This society also portrays women as weaker and not eligible enough to take a stand for themselves, leading to the major destruction of women’s personalities as men are taught to let women down. This mindset of people nowadays is a major social justice issue leading to gender discrimination in society.

Further, gender-based discrimination is evident across the globe in a plethora of things, including sports, education, health and law. Every 1 out of 3 women in the world is abused in various forms at some point in their lives by men. This social evil is present in most parts of the world; in India, women are burnt to death if they are incapable of affording financial requirements; in Egypt, women are killed by society if they are sensed doing something unclean in or out of their families, whereas in South Africa baby girls are abandoned or killed as they are considered as burden for the family. Thus gender discrimination can be only eliminated from society by educating people about giving equal rights and respect to every gender.

Top Universities for Gender Studies Abroad

UK, Canada and USA are the top three countries to study gender studies abroad. Here’s the list of top universities you can consider if you planning to pursue gender studies course abroad: 

We hope this blog has helped you in structuring a terrific essay on gender discrimination. Planning to ace your IELTS, get expert tips from coaches at Leverage Live by Leverage Edu .

Sonal is a creative, enthusiastic writer and editor who has worked extensively for the Study Abroad domain. She splits her time between shooting fun insta reels and learning new tools for content marketing. If she is missing from her desk, you can find her with a group of people cracking silly jokes or petting neighbourhood dogs.

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Gender Discrimination Essay

500 words gender discrimination essay.

Gender discrimination is when there are unfair rights between male and female. It differs because of their gender roles which ultimately leads to unequal treatment in life. Gender discrimination has been around for many centuries. However, as we are evolving, it is time to do away with such notions of gender roles. Thus, gender discrimination essay will take us through it in detail.

Causes of Gender Discrimination

There are many causes of gender discrimination. The first one has to be illiteracy . When people do not educate themselves, they continue to live in the old times. Thus, they follow the old-age sexist traditions and norms.

Education can bring about a change in this mindset because educated people will less likely partake in gender discrimination. Further, poverty is also another reason which is interlinked in a way.

It is the root cause in many places because the economic dependence remains on the male counterparts mostly. Thus, women suffer a lot from it because of the same reason. They never get out of this and stay financially dependent on men.

Furthermore, the patriarchal setup in our society plays a big role. In this setup, the male dominates almost every aspect of life. Thus, they consider themselves to be superior to others.

This way, a lot of violence and injustice is meted out against females. Thus, when there is a gender considering themselves to be superior, it becomes difficult for everyone to avail equal opportunities.

Impact of Gender Discrimination

Gender discrimination has a deep impact on society as a whole. It does not just impact a specific section of the society but every part of it. First of all, it impacts children as they fall prey to gender stereotypes from a young age.

Further, it impacts young people because it impacts their behaviour, study choices, ambitions, attitudes and more. Thus, many girls do not participate in many sports and women experience physical violence more than men.

Next up, we have gender discrimination affecting adults because there is a gender pay gap between the working class. Men earn more for doing the same work as women. In addition, older women have more risk of becoming homeless than men.

It also impacts the aboriginal women because they have it a lot worse. It is more likely to happen that they can die from family violence, 11 times more than men. Even for men, it is not beneficial as it sets difficult standards for men to follow.

It draws a line on men being emotional. Thus, they can never showcase their emotions truly without being judged. Similarly, men do not parental leave in many places. Ultimately, all this results in more suicide in men. Thus, it impacts everyone.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of Gender Discrimination Essay

Gender discrimination must be checked at every stage so that no person should be denied a chance to learn and grow. Thus, everyone, no matter male or female, must get a start in life in terms of educations and other opportunities. We must come together as a society to do this.

FAQ on Gender Discrimination Essay

Question 1: Who is affected by gender inequality?

Answer 1: Gender inequality affects everyone, which includes men as well. Stereotypes about how women and men, girls and boys should be, start from their childhood and follow us to adulthood. Thus, it does not affect just one but all.

Question 2: Give an example of gender discrimination.

Answer 2: There are many examples of gender discrimination. For instance, restriction on clothing. If a man wears shorts, no one will bat an eye. However, if a woman wears shorts, she will be seen in a bad light and be called names. Similar is the case for housework.

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