Analyzing the Management of India's Caste System in Education and Work

This report delves into the intricate issue of the caste system in India, analyzing its profound impact on education and employment. It explores the historical context, societal divisions, and the government's efforts to address caste-based discrimination through affirmative action policies like job reservations and college quotas. The analysis examines the effectiveness of these measures, the challenges faced, and the perspectives of various stakeholders, including the government, private sector companies, and individuals. The report further investigates the role of education, the impact of globalization, and the evolving attitudes of the youth towards workplace equitability. It highlights the initiatives taken by corporations to promote diversity and inclusion, while also discussing the limitations and persistent issues such as workplace harassment and the misuse of reservation policies. The report concludes with a critical assessment of the current state of affairs and potential strategies for fostering a more equitable and inclusive society.

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How India managed caste system in education and work
Student’s name
Name of the Institute

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Introduction
The caste system in India exists in the form of social hierarchy. It combines aspects of
both occupation and race class. Removal of caste discrimination is one of the major agenda in
India. There are many positive policies related to employment and education is in place. The
required monitoring is to be done from government side. The caste is something attached to the
person from start. The surnames themselves define the caste of the person. The caste
discrimination plays an important role in day to day decision making of work place as people
caste can create the first impression about people. It plays very important role in education and
recruitment in public as well as private sector. The issue is so sensitive that government has to
consider various related policies before making any decision. The government time to time needs
to defend itself from not seen as supporting one particular group. It is also necessary that HR
employees understand the complexity of caste system and its relevancy for organizations.
Reservation system provides support to lower caste people in their education and public-sector
jobs.
Analysis
Caste is one of the prevalent issues in Indian Society. Many people claim that it divides
society, restrict opportunity for particular group. It also restricts nation to realize its full
potential. Even with the modernization, the Indian caste system has proved itself more rigid.
Dalits or people from the low caste of society were majorly considered for work involving
butchering, cleaning street, removal of rubbish etc. (Abraham, 2016). Also there is high school
dropout rate in low caste families (De Roover & Claerhout, 2015). It is the duty of every state

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and individual to fight this evil of caste system and provide every individual the rights promised
by Indian Constitution.
According to Indian Constitution, discrimination against lower caste is considered illegal.
The government has come up with number of affirmative actions to improve socio- economic
conditions of lower caste of society. These include Job reservations and college entry quotas etc.
The main objective of reservation is the equal progress for all sections of society. According to
article 46 of the constitution, economic and education interest of weaker section of people should
be preserved and shall protect them from all form of social exploitation and social injustice
(Deshpande, 2017). Reservation helps the lower section of society to enjoy humane lifestyle.
This affirmative action helps in compensating the historical injustice (Haynes & Alagaraja,
2016). It was put in place to ensure equality of opportunities. It wants to place backward society
at par with upper classes. Reservation policy is based on the percentage of population of different
castes (Kedia, 2015). Quotas or reservation already apply in government and education.
Significant amount of government job and university seats are reserved for tribal people and
dalits or the low class. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has introduced some measures
that include scholarships for the low caste candidates. The Federation of Indian chambers of
commerce and Industry decides to support poor districts’ entrepreneurs in India.
Education system aims to grow society. So doing caste based reservation in education
and employment sector helps in achieving this goal. Education should be spread to all the
economic sections of society. Reservation is set to reduce the communal gap. Reservation has
helped literacy level of SC/ST communities. Now there is more number of people having access
to education. Better education has leaded them to get more job opportunities. This further has
declined the Below Poverty Line population combining both SC and ST (Amin, 2016).

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Reservation has allowed children from lower caste to acquire language skills in terms of
phonological awareness and letter recognition. They become more proficient on tasks like
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, sequencing etc. Upper class generally takes private
coaching which lower class does not have economics to go for private coaching. In addition to
relaxing admission norms, the government has asked the universities or schools to rank them on
easy parameters. It is done to boost the confidence of the low class students. This era of internet
is providing education to almost everyone irrespective of any caste, creed and social status
(Vikas & Belk, 2015). These online courses are becoming recognized courses and thus preparing
candidates for the job opportunity. Many of the courses are free like Google Analytics etc.
Many public sector units like Indian Oil follow the reservation system. They hire from
“reserved categories”. Over 20% of the jobs are reserved for low caste candidates. But this
follows the regressive competition to attract the best. They make sure that there is no
compromise on the quality of candidates recruited. But promotion norms are relaxed for these
candidates. Many people believe that there is improvement only in public sector jobs for this
section of society and other areas still needs to get exploited. If there is no reservation in public
or private sector jobs than there is no discrimination but then it will deny jobs to different
sections of society (Jensenius, 2015). This is how reservation justifies itself. However, general
category believes that because of reservation, merit is in danger (Iyengar & Saini, 2015). There
are many claims that reservation is diluting the quality of education. Majority of people who gets
seat does not belong to backward class or are poor. So reservation is getting misused in many
parts of the India.
Naukri.com, India’s biggest online recruitment service has decided to recruit candidates
based on the caste. But there are very few companies which tend to work in this regards. Based

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on a research it is found that top 500 private sector companies have upper caste people at
management position. The seats of lower caste people are fixed in public sector jobs and
institutions but not at private sector companies. But what is the big reason for this under
representation? Many parties like BJP-led government taking a stand in which they could
introduce reservation in private sector jobs as well. But companies generally oppose this move.
They work on the principle of free market. Mostly, the private sector companies including
Accenture, Wipro, Organic India does not apply caste based filter.in any scenario. They do not
have any clause of asking caste in their recruitment form. The point is neither raised during the
screening process. They believe that there is no room for caste system in their hiring process. It
is entirely based on merit system. It is about academic qualifications, talent and years of
experience. These companies stress on the point that since there is no caste preference, so all
candidates are treated equal and given a fair chance. The real focus is on having the right person
for the job irrespective of caste consideration. Willingness of the candidate to learn is given the
prime importance. But all these above points does not rule out the fact that lower class people are
employed at entry level position and sometimes as unskilled labor. The reason is that these
people do not have right soft skills or contact. The selection process is based on how well they
communicate. This indicates that there is gap in the education system which does not prepare
these candidates with the required skills (Kapur & Perry, 2015). Most of these people or students
come from rural areas and understand English but are not good in terms of speaking the
language. They are not selected because they lack the body language and are not dressed
properly. The nature of recruitment process is not transparent and excludes some section of the
society. The another reason why there is low participation of lower section of society in startup

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ventures is because of lack of availability and access to capital and fewer networking
opportunities (Chen & Vissa, 2015).
So it is necessary that corporates fill in the gap at entry level left by the education. So,
mostly companies have already taken initiative in this regard. They started investing their
resources to enable everyone in the society could compete for the best. They are not waiting for
the government to make these lower class candidates at par with the upper section of society.
Various programs have been set up by these companies for the underprivileged students. These
courses or programs work like a finishing school. These activities help students in acquiring
necessary soft skills. This helps them joining the corporate sector with more confidence. These
efforts help in developing their leadership abilities. Another approach which corporates indulge
in is by targeting on board learners. The companies conduct an integrated program where on-the
–job training is given along with handling educational aspirations (Mangla, A. (2018). On the
successful completion of course, there is guarantee of job. Tata group has well defined strategy
in place on these issues. They have affirmative action plan and diversity program. The group
puts its efforts towards positive discrimination. Positive discrimination is when two people with
the same qualification apply for job and the one belongs to lower section of society is hired
(Harper, 2017). But the company considers that this kind of strategy is difficult to implement.
Many times the low caste employees suffer from workplace harassment like managers speak of
“quota candidates” .Such kind of attitude suppress the employees and in turn impact the
productivity (Agrawal, 2016). These groups of candidates try to remove their caste name because
they become afraid of social stigma. The other criteria which Tata group stresses on are forcing
group companies to recruit or source candidates from vendors which belong to low communities.
Many DICCI (Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Members) vendors are

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registered with Tata companies. In collaboration with Indian Institute of Information
Technology, Bangalore (IIIT), Infosys is conducting special training to backward class
engineering graduates who could not get job in the industry. These courses have duration of 7
months but it does not guarantee job. But it makes the candidates fit for the industry. Many
companies feel that caste system is trouble and only government has the responsibility to resolve
it. There are only few companies who try to make recruitment process more inclusive (Mishra,
2017). Still there is improvement needed in terms of harassment by colleagues and co-workers.
These colleagues feel that quota rules out merit system. Merit is discussed as privilege for higher
class. The view from top of hierarchy is bit different. The people on the top of ladder irrespective
of their caste believe that reservation is exception and not the rule. This keeps everyone in the
same boat. The only thing matter after this is hard work which has no substitute. Candidates
make conscious effort to prove themselves. Many Indians go abroad and work harder to justify
their standings. The changing perception of youth is added on factor that focuses on workplace
equitability (Galanter, 2015). An ambitious worker or employee wants to move up in the ladder
so the caste markers become less relevant here (Vashisht & Dubey, 2018). Due to globalization
also Indian workplace has become modernized and start including other ethnicities. There are
stringent laws protecting any kind of diversity. However, this caste issue is sensitive in India that
nobody wants to talk about it (Ghurye, 2016).
The government instead of raising stick to the private sector can try carrot. They should
incentivized private companies to promote diversity. Most of the private sector companies
depend on the government for land or property at concession rates, contracts, subsidies, tax
benefits etc. So there is check on these companies that if they violate any kind of Diversity Index
then incentives will be decreased. The companies should realize that bringing large chunk of

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people from different diversity to solve problem will not only give an innovative solution but
also improve the bottom line in the longer term. The programs initiated by Infosys and TATA
group provide great opportunity to many low caste people. The modernization of Indian
economy has brought many changes. The identity of upper class, however at low pace, is fading.
There is no strong evidence that private companies discriminate low sections of society.
Reservation helps in providing education to the low caste but is misused by people. Also the
quality of education for these people is poor. So they are not able to make their ends meet which
left them nowhere. So it is necessary significant changes in the reservation should be made and
proper monitoring should be done to have appropriate results. If it not done, than that would be
the biggest threat to the economic growth. Government has taken initiatives by increasing the
number of seats in universities and colleges. Thus satisfy all sections of society. It is necessary
that low caste businessman get easy credit access which opens opportunity for them in
entrepreneurial segment. The government can do reservation based on the income system of the
family. There should be pressure for a job-oriented economy which provides better infrastructure
and investment in scholarships for deserving student (Hyde & Ladusingh, 2017).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that due to globalization and modernization there is significant
amount of improvement in the thinking of people. Now importance to caste, creed and color is
given less importance than it used to be sometime back. But the demon is not extinct yet. Low
caste people still face huge problems in education as well as job opportunities. Reservation
system is one step taken towards reducing the gap. It provides educational opportunities to low
caste sections of society by giving them edge in large number of seats. The government also
provides scholarship to these candidates .However, reservation is challenge to merit based

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system. It is also misused by those who don’t need this. PSUs still follow reservation system.
Most of the private sector companies hire talent and does not have any clause for caste. This
makes sense only when each section of society is properly groomed and then given equal
selection opportunities. So many private companies and institution joined hands to provide such
kind of environment to backward class. It is necessary that every private sector consider this as
their responsibility and make it mandatory part of their CSR activities. Many online courses are
training candidates irrespective of the “surname” they hand. So, necessary changes in the
policies and training individuals to avoid workplace harassment can be the next step in this
direction.

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