Early history The existence of
jati and the precursor of caste has been found in the
Indus Valley Civilisation (3300–1700 BCE). Sociologist S C. Malik writes Indus Valley Civilization saw "perpetuation of caste status by birth" and "caste-class patterns" were found in Indian society since this period. Charles Maisels finds caste stratification to have arisen from occupational groups upon the devolution from urban Indus Valley society.
Romila Thapar finds possibility of a caste as pre-Vedic element, and notes that Jati pre-dated Vedic varna. Thapar further notes that
Jatis were derived from clans of Indus Valley Civilisation which saw emergence of different occupations that were inherited and became hierarchically organised with unequal access to resources with stringent marriage regulations and rituals becoming rigid system over a period of time. Archaeologist
M.K. Dhavalikar has also supported existence of caste system in Indus Valley Civilisation.
Early Vedic period (1500–1000 BCE) During the early
Vedic period in northern India, when the
Rigveda was composed (1500–1200 BC), there were only two in the Vedic society: and . The distinction originally arose from tribal divisions. The Vedic people were
Indo-European-speaking tribes who
migrated over a period of several centuries into northern South Asia from the
Bactria-Margiana, and mixed with the "indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations", but regarded themselves as superior. The Vedic tribes regarded themselves as (the noble ones) and the rival tribes were called
dasa,
dasyu and
pani. The
dasas were frequent allies of the Aryan tribes, and they were probably assimilated into the Aryan society, giving rise to a class distinction. Many
dasas were, however, in a servile position, giving rise to the eventual meaning of
dasa as servant or slave. The
Rigvedic society was not distinguished by occupations. Many husbandmen and artisans practised a number of crafts. The chariot-maker () and metal worker () enjoyed positions of importance and no stigma was attached to them. Similar observations hold for carpenters, tanners, weavers and others. Towards the end of the
Atharvaveda period, new class distinctions emerged. The erstwhile
dasas are renamed Shudras, probably to distinguish them from the new meaning of
dasa as slave. The are renamed
vis or Vaishya (meaning the members of the tribe) and the new elite classes of
Brahmins (priests) and
Kshatriyas (warriors) are designated as new
varnas. The Shudras were not only the erstwhile
dasas but also included the aboriginal tribes that were assimilated into the Aryan society as it expanded into Gangetic settlements. This class-distinction is still reflected in the fact that the upper castes have a relatively higher steppe ancestry than the lower castes. There is no evidence of restrictions regarding food and marriage during the Vedic period. According to Moorjani et al. (2013), co-authored by Reich, extensive admixture took place between 2200 BCE and 100 CE (4200 to 1900 before present), whereafter India shifted to "a region in which mixture was rare". In southern India, endogamy may have set in 1000 years earlier.
Later Vedic period (1000–600 BC) In an early Upanishad, Shudra is referred to as
Pūşan or nourisher, suggesting that Shudras were the tillers of the soil. But soon afterwards, Shudras are not counted among the tax-payers and they are said to be given away along with the land when it is gifted. The majority of the artisans were also reduced to the position of Shudras, but there is no contempt indicated for their work. The Brahmins and the Kshatriyas are given a special position in the rituals, distinguishing them from both the Vaishyas and the Shudras. The Vaishya is said to be "oppressed at will" and the Shudra "beaten at will".
Second urbanisation (500–200 BC) Knowledge of this period is supplemented by
Pali Buddhist texts. Whereas the Brahmanical texts speak of the four-fold
varna system, the Buddhist texts present an alternative picture of the society, stratified along the lines of
jati,
kula and occupation. It is likely that the
varna system, while being a part of the Brahmanical ideology, was not practically operative in the society. In the Buddhist texts, Brahmin and Kshatriya are described as
jatis rather than
varnas. They were in fact the
jatis of high rank. The
jatis of low rank were mentioned as
chandala and occupational classes like bamboo weavers, hunters, chariot-makers and sweepers. The concept of
kulas was broadly similar. Along with Brahmins and Kshatriyas, a class called (literally householders, but effectively propertied classes) was also included among high
kulas. The people of high were engaged in occupations of high rank,
viz., agriculture, trade, cattle-keeping, computing, accounting and writing, and those of low were engaged in low-ranked occupations such as basket-weaving and sweeping. The were an economic class of land-holding agriculturists, who employed
dasa-kammakaras (slaves and hired labourers) to work on the land. The were the primary taxpayers of the state. This class was apparently not defined by birth, but by individual economic growth. While there was an alignment between
kulas and occupations at least at the high and low ends, there was no strict linkage between class/caste and occupation, especially among those in the middle range. Many occupations listed such as accounting and writing were not linked to
jatis. Peter Masefield, in his review of caste in India, states that anyone could in principle perform any profession. The texts state that the Brahmin took food from anyone, suggesting that strictures of commensality were as yet unknown. The
Nikaya texts also imply that endogamy was not mandated. The contestations of the period are also evident from the texts describing dialogues of Buddha with the Brahmins. The Brahmins maintain their divinely ordained superiority and assert their right to draw service from the lower orders. Buddha responds by pointing out the basic facts of biological birth common to all men and asserts that the ability to draw service is obtained economically, not by divine right. Using the example of the northwest of the subcontinent, Buddha points out that could become and vice versa. This form of social mobility was endorsed by Buddha.
Early Hinduism (200 BC–320 AD) and Classical period (320–650 AD) According to Moorjani et al. (2013), endogamy set in after 100 CE. According to Basu et al. (2016), admixture between populations was "rapidly replaced by endogamy [...] among upper castes and Indo-European speakers predominantly[...] almost simultaneously, possibly by decree of the rulers, in upper-caste populations of all geographical regions, about 70 generations before present, probably during the reign (319–550 CE) of the ardent Hindu Gupta rulers".
Johannes Bronkhorst, referring to Basu et al. (2016) and Moorjani et al. (2013) states that "it seems safe to conclude that a shift to endogamy took place during the first half of the first millennium CE, at least in northern India", due to the growing influence of Brahmanism. This shift is attested in the
Manusmriti (1st to 3rd century CE), which "explicitly forbade intermarriage across castes". The
Mahabharata, estimated to have been completed by the end of the fourth century CE, discusses the
varna system in section 12.181, presenting two models. The first model describes
varna as a colour-based system, through a character named Bhrigu, "Brahmins
varna was white, Kshatriyas was red, Vaishyas was yellow, and the Shudras' black". This description is questioned by Bharadvaja who says that colors are seen among all the
varnas, that desire, anger, fear, greed, grief, anxiety, hunger and toil prevails over all human beings, that bile and blood flow from all human bodies, so what distinguishes the
varnas, he asks. The Mahabharata then declares, "There is no distinction of
varnas. This whole universe is
Brahman. It was created formerly by
Brahma, came to be classified by acts." The epic then recites a behavioural model for
varna, that those who were inclined to anger, pleasures and boldness attained the Kshatriya
varna; those who were inclined to cattle rearing and living off the plough attained the Vaishya
varna; those who were fond of violence, covetousness and impurity attained the Shudra
varna. The Brahmin class is modeled in the epic as the archetype default state of man dedicated to truth, austerity and pure conduct. In the Mahabharata and pre-medieval era Hindu texts, according to Hiltebeitel, "it is important to recognise, in theory,
varna is nongenealogical. The four
varnas are not lineages, but categories".
Late classical and early medieval period (650 to 1400) Scholars have tried to locate historical evidence for the existence and nature of
varna and
jati in documents and inscriptions of medieval India. Supporting evidence has been elusive and contradictory evidence has emerged.
Varna is rarely mentioned in the extensive medieval era records of
Andhra Pradesh, for example. This has led Cynthia Talbot, a professor of History and Asian Studies, to question whether
varna was socially significant in the daily lives of this region. Most mentions of
varna in the Andhra inscriptions come from Brahmins. Two rare temple donor records from warrior families of the 14th century claim to be Shudras. One states that Shudras are the bravest, the other states that Shudras are the purest. Richard Eaton, a professor of history, writes, "anyone could become a warrior regardless of social origins, nor do the
jati—another pillar of alleged traditional Indian society—appear as features of people's identity. Occupations were fluid." Evidence shows, according to Eaton, that Shudras were part of the nobility, and many "father and sons had different professions, suggesting that social status was earned, not inherited" in the Hindu
Kakatiya population in the
Deccan region between the 11th and 14th centuries. In the
Tamil Nadu region of India, studied by Leslie Orr, a professor of religion, "Chola period inscriptions challenge our ideas about the structuring of (south Indian) society in general. In contrast to what Brahmanical legal texts may lead us to expect, we do not find that caste is the organising principle of society or that boundaries between different social groups are sharply demarcated." In Tamil Nadu, during ancient and medieval period, the
Vellalar were the elite caste and major patrons of literature. For the Northern Indian region, Susan Bayly writes, "until well into the colonial period, much of the subcontinent was still populated by people for whom the formal distinctions of caste were of only limited importance; even in parts of the so-called Hindu heartland of Gangetic upper India, the institutions and beliefs which are now often described as the elements of traditional caste were only just taking shape as recently as the early eighteenth century—that is, when the Mughal era was collapsing and western power was expanding into the subcontinent". For western India,
Dirk H. A. Kolff suggests open status social groups dominated Rajput history during the medieval period. He states, "The omnipresence of cognatic kinship and caste in North India is a relatively new phenomenon that only became dominant in the early Mughal and British periods respectively. Historically speaking, the alliance and the open status group, whether war band or religious sect, dominated medieval and early modern Indian history in a way descent and caste did not."
Adi Purana, an 8th-century text of Jainism by
Jinasena, is the first mention of
varna and
jati in
Jain literature. Jinasena does not trace the origin of
varna system to Rigveda or to Purusha, but to the
Bharata legend. According to this legend, Bharata performed an "
ahimsa-test" (test of non-violence), and during that test all those who refused to harm any living beings were called as the priestly
varna in ancient India, and Bharata called them
dvija, twice born. Jinasena states that those who are committed to the principle of non-harming and non-violence to all living beings are
deva-Brahmaṇas, divine Brahmins. The
Ādi purāṇa (9th c.) also discusses the relationship between varna and jati. According to
Padmanabh Jaini, a professor of Indic studies, in Jainism and Buddhism, the Adi Purana text states "there is only one
jati called
manusyajati or the human caste, but
divisions arise on account of their different professions". The caste of Kshatriya arose, according to Jainism texts, when
Rishabha procured weapons to serve the society and assumed the powers of a king, while Vaishya and Shudra castes arose from different means of livelihood they specialised in.
Medieval era, Islamic Sultanates and Mughal empire period (1000 to 1750) Early and mid 20th century Muslim historians, such as Hashimi in 1927 and Qureshi in 1962, proposed that "caste system was established before the arrival of Islam", and it and "a nomadic savage lifestyle" in the northwest Indian subcontinent were the primary cause why
Sindhi non-Muslims "embraced Islam in flocks" when Arab Muslim armies invaded the region. According to this hypothesis, the mass conversions occurred from the lower caste Hindus and Mahayana Buddhists who had become "corroded from within by the infiltration of Hindu beliefs and practices". This theory is now widely believed to be baseless and false. Derryl MacLein, a professor of social history and Islamic studies, states that historical evidence does not support this theory; that whatever evidence is available suggests that Muslim institutions in north-west India legitimised and continued any inequalities that existed; and that neither Buddhists nor "lower caste" Hindus converted to Islam because they viewed Islam to lack a caste system. Conversions to Islam were rare, states MacLein, and conversions attested by historical evidence confirms that the few who did convert were Brahmin Hindus (theoretically, the upper caste). MacLein asserts that the caste and conversion theories about Indian society during the Islamic era are not based on historical evidence or verifiable sources, but rather on the personal assumptions of Muslim historians about the nature of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism in the northwest Indian subcontinent. Richard Eaton, a professor of history at Berkley, asserts that the presumption of a rigid Hindu caste system and the oppression of lower castes in pre-Islamic era in India is the cause of "mass conversion to Islam" during the medieval era. This claim has the problem that "no evidence can be found in support of the theory, and it is profoundly illogical". Jackson states that, contrary to the theoretical model of caste where only Kshatriyas could be warriors and soldiers, historical evidence confirms that Hindu warriors and soldiers during the medieval era included members of other castes such as Vaishyas and Shudras.
Jamal Malik states that caste as a social stratification is a well-studied Indian system, yet evidence also suggests that hierarchical concepts, class consciousness and social stratification had already occurred in Islam before Islam arrived in India. Zia al-Din al-Barani of
Delhi Sultanate in his
Fatawa-ye Jahandari and Abu al-Fadl from Akbar's court of
Mughal Empire are the few Islamic court historians who mention caste.
Zia al-Din al-Barani's discussion, however, is not about non-Muslim castes, rather a declaration of the supremacy of
Ashraf caste over
Ardhal caste among the Muslims, justifying it in Quranic text, with "aristocratic birth and superior genealogy being the most important traits of a human".
Irfan Habib, an Indian historian, states that
Abu al-Fazl's
Ain-i Akbari provides a historical record and census of the
Jat peasant caste of Hindus in northern India, where the tax-collecting noble classes (
Zamindars), the armed cavalry and infantry (warrior class) doubling up as the farming peasants (working class), were all of the same Jat caste in the 16th century. These occupationally diverse members from one caste served each other, writes Habib, either because of their reaction to taxation pressure of Muslim rulers or because they belonged to the same caste. Peasant social stratification and caste lineages were, states Habib, tools for tax revenue collection in areas under the Islamic rule. The origin of caste system of modern form, in the Bengal region of India, may be traceable to this period, states Richard Eaton. The medieval era Islamic Sultanates in India utilised social stratification to rule and collect tax revenue from non-Muslims. Eaton states that, "Looking at Bengal's Hindu society as a whole, it seems likely that the caste system—far from being the ancient and unchanging essence of Indian civilisation as supposed by generations of Orientalists—emerged into something resembling its modern form only in the period 1200–1500". The legal code and colonial administrative practice was largely divided into Muslim law and Hindu law, the latter including laws for Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. In this transitory phase, Brahmins together with scribes, ascetics and merchants who accepted Hindu social and spiritual codes, became the deferred-to-authority on Hindu texts, law and administration of Hindu matters. While legal codes and state administration were emerging in India, with the rising power of the European powers, Dirks states that the late 18th-century British writings on India say little about caste system in India, and predominantly discuss territorial conquest, alliances, warfare and diplomacy in India. Colin Mackenzie, a British social historian of this time, collected vast numbers of texts on Indian religions, culture, traditions and local histories from south India and Deccan region, but his collection and writings have very little on caste system in 18th-century India.
During British rule (1857 to 1947) Although the
varnas and
jatis have pre-modern origins, the caste system as it exists today is the result of developments during the post-Mughal period and the
British colonial period, which made caste organisation a central mechanism of administration.
Basis Jati were the basis of caste ethnology during the British colonial era. In the 1881 census and thereafter, colonial ethnographers used caste (
jati) headings to count and classify people in what was then
British India (now India,
Pakistan,
Bangladesh and
Myanmar). The 1891 census included 60 sub-groups each subdivided into six occupational and racial categories, and the number increased in subsequent censuses. The colonial era census caste tables, states Susan Bayly, "ranked, standardised and cross-referenced jati listings for Indians on principles similar to zoology and botanical classifications, aiming to establish who was superior to whom by virtue of their supposed purity, occupational origins and collective moral worth". While bureaucratic colonial officials completed reports on their zoological classification of Indian people, some British officials criticised these exercises as being little more than a caricature of the reality of caste system in India. The colonial officials used the census-determined jatis to decide which group of people were qualified for which jobs in the colonial government, and people of which jatis were to be excluded as unreliable. These census caste classifications, states Gloria Raheja, a professor of anthropology, were also used by colonial officials over the late 19th century and early 20th century, to formulate land tax rates, as well as to frequently target some social groups as "criminal" castes and castes prone to "rebellion". The population then comprised about 200 million people, across five major religions, and over 500,000 agrarian villages, each with a population between 100 and 1,000 people of various age groups, which were variously divided into numerous castes. This ideological scheme was theoretically composed of around 3,000 castes, which in turn was claimed to be composed of 90,000 local endogamous sub-groups. The strict
British class system may have influenced the British preoccupation with the Indian caste system as well as the British perception of pre-colonial Indian castes. British society's own similarly rigid class system provided the British with a template for understanding Indian society and castes. The British, coming from a society rigidly divided by class, attempted to equate India's castes with British
social classes. According to
David Cannadine, Indian castes merged with the traditional British class system during the British Raj.
Sanskritisation Sanskritisation is often aimed to claim the
Varna status of Brahmin or Kshatriyas, the two prestigious Varna of the Vedic-age Varna system. One of the main examples of that is various non-elite pastoral communities like
Ahir,
Gopa,
Ahar, Goala etc. who adopted the
Yadav word as part of a Sanskritisation effort to gain upward mobility in society during the late 19th century to early 20th century. Similar attempts were made by communities which were historically classed as non-elite tillers like
Kurmi and various communities like
Koeri, Murao, Nai etc. from the late 19th century onwards through their caste organisations by claiming higher social status. The spread of Sanskritisation under British rule saw a significant boost. The attempts at Sanskritisation by the lower-castes before British rule were resisted by the upper-castes. According to Jaffrelot, the formation of Caste associations was a by-product of enumeration of caste in censuses undertaken by the British regime.
Herbert Hope Risley, a colonial administrator who served as the census commissioner, decided to categorise castes in their local context and rank them accordingly into a Varna. This led to the creation of advocacy groups that sought upward mobility of their social and Varna status through sanskritisation. The Castes such as
Kurmis,
Gadariyas,
Kachi,
Jatavs,
Lodhs and
Ahirs underwent sanskritisation in order to claim Kshatriya status.
Race science Colonial administrator
Herbert Hope Risley, an exponent of
race science, used the ratio of the width of a
nose to its height to divide Indians into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.
Enforcement ) people classified by castes. Above is an 1860s photograph of
Rajputs, classified as a high Hindu caste.
Jobs for forward castes The role of the British Raj on the caste system in India is controversial. The caste system became legally rigid during the Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during their
ten-year census and meticulously codified the system. Between 1860 and 1920, the British incorporated the caste system into their system of governance, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to the upper castes.
Targeting criminal castes and their isolation Starting with the 19th century, the British colonial government passed a series of laws that applied to Indians based on their religion and caste identification. These colonial era laws and their provisions used the term "Tribes", which included castes within their scope. This terminology was preferred for various reasons, including Muslim sensitivities that considered castes by definition Hindu, and preferred
Tribes, a more generic term that included Muslims. The British colonial government, for instance, enacted the
Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. This law declared that all those who belonged to certain castes were born with criminal tendencies. as well as
Sannyasis and hill tribes. Castes suspected of rebelling against colonial laws and seeking self-rule for India, such as the previously ruling families
Kallars and the
Maravars in south India and non-loyal castes in north India such as Ahirs, Gurjars and Jats, were called "predatory and barbarian" and added to the criminal castes list. Some caste groups were targeted using the Criminal Tribes Act even when there were no reports of any violence or criminal activity, but where their forefathers were known to have rebelled against Mughal or British authorities, or these castes were demanding labour rights and disrupting colonial tax collecting authorities. The colonial government prepared a list of criminal castes, and all members registered in these castes by caste-census were restricted in terms of regions they could visit, move about in or people with whom they could socialise. This practice became controversial and did not enjoy the support of all British colonial officials. In a few cases this decades-long practice was reversed at the start of the 20th century with the proclamation that people "could not be incarcerated indefinitely on the presumption of [inherited] bad character". The criminal-by-birth laws against targeted castes was enforced until the mid-20th century, with an expansion of criminal castes list in west and south India through the 1900s to 1930s. Hundreds of Hindu communities were brought under the Criminal Tribes Act. By 1931, the colonial government included 237 criminal castes and tribes under the act in the
Madras Presidency alone.
Religion and caste segregated human rights Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of History and Religions in India, states that the colonial government hardened the caste-driven divisions in India not only through its caste census, but with a series of laws in the early 20th century. Colonial officials, for instance, enacted laws such as the
Land Alienation Act in 1900 and Punjab Pre-Emption Act in 1913, listing castes that could legally own land and denying equivalent property rights to other census-determined castes. These acts prohibited the inter-generational and intra-generational transfer of land from land-owning castes to any non-agricultural castes, thereby preventing economic mobility of property and creating consequent caste barriers in India. Caste-based discrimination and denial of human rights by the colonial state had similar impact elsewhere in India.
Social identity Nicholas Dirks has argued that Indian caste as we know it today is a "modern phenomenon", as caste was "fundamentally transformed by British colonial rule". According to Dirks, before colonial rule, caste affiliation was quite loose and fluid, but colonial rule enforced caste affiliation rigorously, and constructed a much more strict hierarchy than existed previously, with some castes being criminalised and others being given preferential treatment. De Zwart notes that the caste system used to be thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, but that contemporary scholars argue instead that the system was constructed by the colonial authorities. He says that "jobs and education opportunities were allotted based on caste, and people rallied and adopted a caste system that maximized their opportunity". De Zwart also notes that post-colonial affirmative action only reinforced the "British colonial project that ex hypothesi constructed the caste system". Sweetman notes that the European conception of caste dismissed former political configurations and insisted upon an "essentially religious character" of India. During the colonial period, caste was defined as a religious system and was divorced from political powers. This made it possible for the colonial rulers to portray India as a society characterised by spiritual harmony in contrast to the former Indian states which they criticised as "despotic and epiphenomenal", with the colonial powers providing the necessary "benevolent, paternalistic rule by a more 'advanced' nation".
Further development Assumptions about the caste system in Indian society, along with its nature, evolved during colonial rule. Corbridge concludes that British policies towards India's numerous
princely sovereign states, as well as enumeration of the population into rigid categories during the 10-year census, particularly with the 1901 and 1911 census, contributed towards the hardening of caste identities. Social unrest during 1920s led to a change in this policy. From then on, the colonial administration began a policy of
positive discrimination by reserving a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes. In the round table conference held in
August 1932, upon the request of Ambedkar, the then
Prime Minister of Britain,
Ramsay MacDonald made a
Communal Award which awarded a provision for separate representation for the Muslims, Sikhs, Christians,
Anglo-Indians, Europeans and Dalits. These depressed classes were assigned a number of seats to be filled by election from special constituencies in which voters belonging to the depressed classes only could vote. Gandhi went on a hunger strike against this provision claiming that such an arrangement would split the Hindu community into two groups. Years later, Ambedkar wrote that Gandhi's fast was a form of coercion. This agreement, which saw Gandhi end his hunger strike and Ambedkar drop his demand for a separate electorate, was called the
Poona Pact. After India achieved independence, the policy of caste-based reservation of jobs was formalised with lists of
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Other theories and observations Smelser and Lipset propose in their review of Hutton's study of caste system in colonial India the theory that individual mobility across caste lines may have been minimal in India because it was ritualistic. They state that this may be because the colonial social stratification worked with the pre-existing ritual caste system. The emergence of a caste system in the modern form, during the early period of British colonial rule in the 18th and 19th centuries, was not uniform in South Asia. Claude Markovits, a French historian of colonial India, writes that Hindu society in north and west India (Sindh), in the late 18th century and much of the 19th century, lacked a proper caste system, their religious identities were fluid (a combination of Saivism, Vaisnavism, Sikhism), and the Brahmins were not the widespread priestly group (but the
Bawas were). Markovits writes, "if religion was not a structuring factor, neither was caste" among the Hindu merchants group of northwest India.
Contemporary India Caste politics Societal stratification, and the inequality that comes with it, still exists in India, Some, such as sociologist
Arvind Shah, have argued that reservation paradoxically creates an incentive to perpetuate social stratification. Others, however, maintain that reservation on the basis of caste is necessary in order to prevent the monopolization of public sector jobs by members of the upper castes. These individuals also point out that reservation in India is not aimed primarily at eradicating poverty, but at ensuring adequate representation of all caste groups. A study in 2005 found that inter-caste marriages had nearly doubled between 1981 and 2005, reaching a level of 6.1%. Opposition to intercaste marriage remains widespread, with
Pew polling indicating that over 3 in 5 Indians agree that it is "very important" to stop both men and women from marrying outside of their castes. The polling indicated, furthermore, that Christians and Buddhists were relatively more accepting of intercaste marriages compared to Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. The Government of India provides financial incentives to intercaste couples under the Dr. Ambedkar Scheme for Social Integration through Inter-Caste Marriages. Various state governments such as those of Odisha, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra also have similar schemes.
Caste-related violence Independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. According to a 2005 UN report, approximately 31,440 cases of violent acts committed against Dalits were reported in 1996. The UN report claimed 1.33 cases of violent acts per 10,000 Dalit people. For context, the UN reported between 40 and 55 cases of violent acts per 10,000 people in developed countries in 2005. One example of such violence is the
Khairlanji massacre of 2006. The
Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 of India aims to prevent and punish atrocities and discrimination against members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Examples of crimes punishable under the Act include "forcing victims to eat or drink obnoxious substances; dumping excreta, sewage, carcasses into their homes or compounds;
land grabbing; humiliation; sexual abuse". The
National Crime Records Bureau includes statistics of crimes reported under the law as part of it annual reports. There has been a growth in total number of crimes reported under the Act in recent years but conviction rates have been low. Crimes against members of Scheduled Caste communities grew by 7.3% and against Scheduled Tribes by 26.5% in 2019.
Indian diaspora Caste persists within the
Indian diaspora. In the
United States, Dalit people report experiencing discrimination and violence. In 2020 the
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing initiated a lawsuit against
Cisco and two of its employees for alleged discrimination against an Indian engineer because he was from a lower caste than them. According to a 2018 survey by civil rights group Equality Labs cited in the lawsuit, 67% of Dalits in the US "reported being treated unfairly at their workplace because of their caste". In 2023,
Seattle became the first US city to ban caste discrimination. The
Government of the United Kingdom ran a public consultation on ways to ensure legal protection against caste discrimination from March 2017 to September 2017. Based on the consultation the government decided that "the best way to provide the necessary protection against unlawful discrimination because of caste is by relying on emerging case law as developed by courts and tribunals". ==Affirmative action==