Caste System Discrimination: Meaning and Its Consequences

The Caste System: An Overview

Discrimination against individuals based on caste would seem to be a relic of the past. Even in India, where the caste system was most rigid, the practice has been officially banned since 1950.

Essentially, a caste system is a rigid assignment of social status based on inheritance. Recent history shows that caste discrimination has by no means disappeared, even in the United States.

In the Hindu caste system, people are placed at birth into “varna” and “jati,” social groups within a strict hierarchy. Historically, caste assignment restricted the individual to certain occupations. Castes did not intermingle.

In various forms, such discrimination has existed in many nations. Generations of immigration have brought issues of caste to the U.S.

Key Takeaways

• Caste system discrimination is the exclusion of individuals from opportunities based on the social level of their families.
• Caste discrimination continues to be linked to poverty, lack of access to public resources, and a lack of job opportunities.
• Even in countries that have outlawed discrimination, issues of caste discrimination are being raised.

Historical Context of Caste System

The modern caste system developed in India. The fragmentation of the Mughal Empire led, in the centuries before the British Raj, to the spread of caste archetypes as a way to cement political legitimacy and social status.

These drew on traditional Hindu social stratifications that many scholars believe traded on notions of ritual purity and contamination. During British rule, caste became a convenient and useful shorthand for the complexities of the region.

By the time of the India independence movement, attempts to topple caste dynamics had gained ground. In 1950, India’s constitution banned caste discrimination and launched a quota system meant to rectify historical injustices against the lowest castes.

However, many argue that caste discrimination still persists in far-reaching ways to this day.

Modern Caste System Discrimination

Caste encourages exclusion, which creates or worsens inequality for those who find themselves at the bottom of its hierarchy. Within the Indian caste system, occupations were historically inherited. That, combined with social stratification—especially through endogamy, which allows people to marry only within their castes—created a rigid system.

Although perceptions of outright discrimination within India are low, there’s evidence that these rigid social distinctions continue to play a role in contemporary life.

There are stark examples of discrimination, too.

Those in disfavored jatis, particularly in rural areas, have reportedly been forced to sell their children into debt bondage—in places where legislation against the practice isn’t fully imposed—or are themselves forced into low-paying work like cleaning waste.

Segregation by caste is linked to lack of education, poor health, and even deficient access to humanitarian relief after disasters.

Impact of Caste Discrimination

For someone living within it, a caste system restricts education, occupation, and the ability to practice one’s religion. Practically, at the community level, caste fuels inequality, as the system allows for the control of resources by higher castes.

There is a strong gender element to the ramifications of caste as well. Women who belong to a “scheduled caste”—one that falls low in the hierarchy—suffer higher incidents of domestic violence, according to a study in the National Library of Medicine.

Illegalizing the Caste System

B.R. Ambedkar, an early critic of caste inequality, wanted to reshape Indian society on democratic and egalitarian principles. For him, this meant an annihilation of caste, an oppressive hierarchy that led necessarily to inequality by controlling resources and opportunities within a closed system.

Ultimately, for Ambedkar, ending caste meant breaking away from the traditional beliefs that justified it, something that would happen through a mix of reforms, laws, education, and marriages between castes.

Ambedkar was instrumental in making caste discrimination illegal in India. He also influenced “reservation,” a form of affirmative action for public jobs written into India’s constitution that seeks to redress caste discrimination. 

The reservation system was revised in 2019 to focus more on economic status than caste designations.

Modern Remnants of Caste System

Some researchers and academics have found evidence that caste continues to influence life outcomes, which might even have been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ashwini Deshpande, a professor of economics at Ashoka University in India, has argued that data from India concerning job losses during the pandemic suggested that differences in job losses between castes could not explained by education, industry, or occupation. This data suggests, Deshpande and her co-author wrote, that “caste is not merely a proxy for class, and identity-based policies might be essential to overcoming these disparities.”

The Anti-Caste Movement

Within the caste system, a group known as Dalits occupied the lowest rung of the hierarchy. They were deemed “untouchables.”

Post-independence, electoral politics have given Dalits a means to relieve some of the ill effects of caste. But many feel that these have insufficiently weakened the impact of caste.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, resistance has taken a variety of forms.

One example: Caste discrimination may have increased religious conversion from Hinduism, with which the caste system is popularly affiliated, into Christianity and Islam.

Violence against Dalits has occasionally inspired more radical political groups, such as the Dalit Panthers, a social and political organization popular in the second half of the 20th century that modeled itself on the Black Panther Party in the U.S.

International Perspectives

International observers tend to emphasize the role of caste discrimination in furthering inequality.

Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit human rights advocacy group, has called caste “a hidden apartheid of segregation, modern-day slavery, and other extreme forms of discrimination, exploitation, and violence.”

Elsewhere, advocates have termed belonging to an “untouchable” jati a “social disability.”

Those such as Rita Izsák-Ndiaye, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues, believe that castes violate international principles of universal human dignity and equality because they subjugate some groups of people below others while fortifying poor socioeconomic circumstances for “lesser” castes.

Caste Issues in the U.S.

Issues related to caste have arisen in the U.S. in recent years, particularly in communities and regions that have substantial populations of immigrants from nations where caste systems are, or were, in place.

The city of Seattle, Washington, passed the first such law outside of Asia in 2023, in response to pressure from some of the state’s 150,000 Indian American residents, who argued that caste discrimination should be included among the discriminatory practices prohibited by law.

A similar state-wide measure in California was passed by the state’s legislature but vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 on the grounds that the state’s current laws against discrimination protected against caste bias, even if not explicitly.

Prejudice produced by caste distinctions has become a management concern as well, with notable corporations beginning to address the issue. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Del are among the companies that have policies addressing caste discrimination.

Is Caste Discrimination a Problem Outside of Asia?

The word caste is most often associated with modern India but effective caste systems have existed throughout the world.

In modern times, diaspora communities have noted that caste discrimination continues to harm their lives. Some large U.S. corporations have put anti-caste discrimination policies in place. Seattle was the first U.S. city to explicitly outlaw caste discrimination, in 2023.

What Role Does Caste Play in People’s Lives?

A caste system determines an individual’s access to education, jobs, and opportunities of all kinds based strictly on birth.

Does India Have Affirmative Action?

India has a quota-based affirmative action program, usually called “reservations,” that is written into its constitution. The program was intended to alleviate the inequality suffered by disfavored “jatis.”

In 2019, the program was altered to reserve resources more broadly for “economically weaker groups.” In 2023, India’s Parliament passed a law to create a reservation system ensuring that women would hold 33% of the seats in state legislatures and the lower House of Parliament.

The Bottom Line

Caste system discrimination turns a rigid social hierarchy into a system of exclusion. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy face severe deprivation and limited opportunity.

Remnants of the caste system continue today in nations around the world. Some are being addressed with a goal of eradicating discrimination based on birth.