Breaking India’s Caste System Essays Example

India has for many years had a caste system in their society that was discriminative. It grouped the Indian society into high and lower castes. There were four major varnas in the social system. These include the Brahmins (Priestly Class), Ksatriya (Military and Ruling Class), Sudra (Labourers) and Vaisya (Merchants and Traders). The lowest caste was the Dalits who were considered to be unclean and hence Indians from other castes were not allowed to have any form of social interactions. However, as time passes the new generation of educated urban middle class Indians has diminished the importance of this caste system in India. They have been educated and have adopted western ideas of liberal thinking. They no longer emphasize on the issue of class in their social set up as they see each other as equals. The educated class has also been enlightened on the negative implications and they have decided to deviate from the old generation form of thinking. They are more focused on creating equal opportunities for all in India in order to fast track economic development in their country.
The government has tried to impose mandatory employment quotas on Private companies in India. This is in a bid to resolve historic inequalities created by the Caste system. However, the private companies seem reluctant to employ lower caste individuals through the quota system as they believe it would affect their competitiveness. They are of the perception that such guarantee of employment to Dalits would hinder them from recruiting the best candidates and politicians would misuse the quota system to gain political mileage by appeasing wide popular public sentiment.
Modern India has a vibrant economy especially in the Information Technology Sector which is considered among the best internationally. There are huge technological companies in India such as Infosys and Wipro. This clearly manifests rapid economic development in the country. This will therefore require the country to tap more on human resource potential. Despite this economic growth the caste system is still deeply rooted especially in rural India. Almost 91% of the lower caste individuals earn less than $100 in a day. This should not be the case industries should strive to create training programs that facilitate hiring graduates from lower caste systems. They are also bright just as the other classes and can contribute their skills and talents in the economy of the country hence creating opportunities for them would not have any negative implications.
Major reforms have happened in India in order to promote equality in the society rather than adhering to the discriminative caste system. However, these reforms have not been taken seriously and as a result the status quo of historical inequalities still remains to date. An affirmative action plan initiative was launched in 2007 by the Confederation of industry in India with an aim of ensuring that private companies would commit themselves to providing vocational training, education scholarships and increase procurements from lower caste entrepreneurs. Currently this affirmative initiative has 729 companies as signatories but the implementation process seems to be taken lightly. An important provision to appoint ombudsmen to investigate complaints of discrimination by private companies has never been effected to date. The initiative appears to be just a public relations stunt.
Brazil and India have common practices and also different cultural practices. In Brazil Catholicism is a religion of almost 80% of the population just as Hinduism is the majority religion in India. Brazil is mostly concentrated on social-economic classes where there is a huge difference between the rich and poor while India has a social structure with a caste system. Brazilian culture is also more family oriented in contrast to personal Indian culture.

Works Cited

Ambedkar, B R. Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition. Brooklyn, New York: Verso Books, 2014.
Bellman, Eric. "Reversal of Fortune Isolates India's Brahmins." The Wall Street Journal (2007): 4.