SVKM’s Mithibai College of Arts, Chauhan Institute of Science &

Amrutben Jivanlal College of Commerce & Economics (Autonomous),

Mumbai

S.Y.B.A SOCIOLOGY SEMESTER III

INTERNAL ASSESSMENT 2021-22
COURSE: INDIAN SOCIETY: CULTURAL DIVERSITY,
HIERARCHIAL CHALLENGES AND INEQUALITIES (Paper II)
PAPER CODE: UAMASOC302

“Caste in the Indian Newsroom”

Esheka Kanodia

SYBA C024

40310200075

7506905145

Submitted to Khevana Desia Ma’am

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I would like to thank Khevana Desai Ma’am for allowing me to write this assignment on ‘Caste
in the Indian Newsroom’. I am very grateful for the guidance offered to me in the process and
am thankful for all the help I received.

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Serial Number Title Page Number

1 Introduction 4

2 Review of Literature 6

3 Methodology 10

4 Conclusion 11

5 References 12

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Introduction

“News cannot reflect society unless newsrooms do.”

- Reuters Institute.

The prevalence of differential treatment based on caste has been widely discussed in academic
circles for years. Yet to seep into our living rooms, these discussions generally lead to nowhere.
And how could they, when the stories of caste atrocities are not told by the voices that should
be heard. The voices that need to be heard remain absent. Instead, a majority of news anchors
and journalists that relay these incidences to us belong to the dominant castes. This points
towards a gaping hole in the Indian media where Bahujan-Dalit reporters should be. This tells
us that we have a big issue to resolve- the representation of people from different caste groups
in the Indian media. It leads to a worrying thought to be arisen- India has a diversity problem.

Over the last few decades, the “fourth pillar of democracy” has evolved from a source of
information to one that is increasingly utilised to shape, if not manufacture, public opinion.
Those who have a say in the news discourse wield enormous power. If they are mostly drawn
from dominating social groups, they are more likely to promote dominant viewpoints. This
contradicts the media's original objective, which is to reflect the diversified society in which
we live. This is why it is especially worrying when major news networks turn a blind eye to
the structural nature of their discrimination.

Before we dive further into this discussion it is important to understand what caste is. The caste
system in India is a method of social stratification, hereditarily passed on the basis of
occupation, social capita and birth. It is a hierarchical structure, with its roots in Vedic India
that rigidly categorizes people and gives them an ascribed status. It consists of two concepts
known as Varna and Jati. The system that exists today, however, is a direct cause of the British
intervention. The British Raj facilitated this institution in the 860s to 1920 when they allowed
only Christians and people belonging to certain castes positions of power and administration.
Following the 1920s, India faced a lot of political turmoil with the rise of many prominent
social reformers that spoke up about caste issues such as B.R. Ambedkar. This allowed for
reforms- but not demolition- both positive and negative discriminatory policies. Examples of
positive reforms would be the reservation system that allowed people from Scheduled Caste

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and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) to have inroads into schools, universities and administrative
jobs. Although there has been considerable improvements in the treatment of reception of
Dalits after the Independence, many issues like identity politics, representation in mainstream
media and the discrimination by “upper castes” on the basis of caste and class are prominent
issues.

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Review of Literature

What this review of literature will be looking over is the socio-political stratification known as
the caste system in Indian media and journalism.

News and the Dalit demographic

The oldest media form is print media, which includes newspapers, magazines and other printed
news sources. Despite the fact that print media consumption is falling globally, many
individuals still read a newspaper or a newsmagazine on a daily basis. As a result, the
importance of print media is enormous. Regular print media readers are more politically
involved. Because print media is read and written by individuals who can read and write, these
readers are mainly educated. On the other hand when it comes to electronic media, a study
stated that the number of people who watch TV increased by 6.7 percent, reaching 892 million
from 836 million in 2018, representing a 56 million rise in 2020. 1

Another crucial statistic in understanding this social issue is the Dalit population. India is home
to over 200 million people from Scheduled Castes and OBCs. They make up about 25% of
India’s population. Compare that to the segment of people that actually participate in the
economy? 39.8 per cent. More than 60% of the Dalit population does not take part in economic
activities.

This information is integral in understanding the role of media in shaping the public opinion as
“News cannot reflect society unless newsrooms do”. It is impossible to get unbiased and fair
news when the primary point of view is privileged, jaded and influential- anything but DBA
(Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi).

Dalits in the Media

The media has historically been a tool used to manipulate the public opinion. In 2019, nine
states accounted for 84% of all crimes against Dalits in India, although accounting for just 54%
of the country's population. In a shocking but not surprising study conducted by Oxfam, There

1
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/210-million-indian-homes-now-have-a-tv-women-owners-surge-
by-7-
barc/articleshow/82094407.cms#:~:text=Simultaneously%2C%20the%20report%20said%20the,56%20million%
20individuals%20in%202020.

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was not a single Dalit, Adivasi, or OBC among news anchors. Only 10 of the 972 stories on
the cover pages of the 12 publications are concerning caste concerns. Dalits and Adivasis write
no more than 5% of all articles in English newspapers.

The downplaying of numbers.

Women and children from the SC/ST group are susceptible to many forms of abuse, including
sexual violence. During the previous three years, from 2017 to 2019, the National Crime
Records Bureau (NCRB) documented 131,430 incidences of crime against Dalit (SC) men and
women. (Rajya Sabha, March 2021). Every year, a percentage of these cases are actually
reported by the media to the public.
In an egalitarian system, the media's account for violence against Dalits might well have
grown proportionately. Is this, however, the case? We all know it isn’t. This is due to the fact
that a newsroom is not immune to the caste hierarchies that have plagued India since its
inception and well before.

Echo chambers

Potentially making an unbiased analysis of the numerous varied caste concerns that plague
Indian culture is made difficult by the originally contradictory or divisive aspect of some caste
problems that have the potential to expand disproportionately as a result of media reporting,
increasing caste division. The same thing is happening today in the context of social media.
For higher rates of consumption, social media corporations may filter their viewers more
effectively into groups of like-minded individuals by employing automated editing algorithms.
This causes a continual validation of latent incorrect and invalid opinions.

Lately, mainstream, English news outlets have shown an unusual interest in outcasts. This may
be possible as, in the last decade, so-called alternative outlets run by editors from the Dalit,
Bahujan, Adivasi, Muslim, Kashmiri, and North Eastern communities have attracted large
enough online audiences to force the so-called mainstream English media to change course.

Reaction to affirmative action

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Affirmative action in India provides reserved seats for SCs (15%), STs (7.5%), and OBCs
(27%) in government positions and college admissions. Savarna folk are not hesitant about
voicing their displeasure with this policy, which frequently translates into animosity of SCs,
STs, and OBCs in the workplace. In contrast to the law's cautiously promoted positive
discrimination policy, the lack in the news of a discourse about common existence of the
underrepresented, a narrative of autonomy and uniqueness, will weaken identities and self-
affirmation of Dalits and the socially disadvantaged castes.

Do diversity policies work?

An important question that arises is whether these diversity policies that promote affirmative
action even work? Having been implemented for over 50 years, there must be some changes
effects. It is less apparent if and to what effect reservations have aided. Because the
constitutional requirement that the progress it made be evaluated before deciding whether it
should be extended has never been met. In reality, very little research has been conducted on
the impact of reservations. In accordance to the Economist, the proportion of Dalits in the civil
services at the highest levels grew from 1.6 percent in 1965 to 11.5 percent in 2011 - and much
more at lower levels - compared to their 16 percent share of the general population. However,
it warned that “a preoccupation with making government service representational rather than
capable” makes it too difficult to dismiss (the) dysfunctional or corrupt officials.

The Indian constitution provides for participation of OBC communities in government

institutions based on population size. However, because media institutions are privately held,
they are not compelled to follow the reservation policy, and they have not considered
voluntarily expanding affirmative action to secure the presence of individuals from
marginalised populations. While the reservation regulation is not being followed, job
advertising are rarely made public. Furthermore, these privately held media outlets are
frequently controlled by extended families. As a result, positions are mostly filled through
contacts and networks.

Correlation between caste and class

Journalists struggle to integrate in the newsroom, certainly at first, because the newsroom
culture is governed by upper echelon. The newsroom floor is dominated by journalists from
English-speaking schools and well-to-do families while working-class journalists cannot

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compete with their standard of living. The lack of social capital is said to have had a denigrating
effect on marginalised class journalists’ morale. Which is why when it may seem as if most
differences in the treatment of certain journalists comes from a class perspective that is not the
only factor that affects them.

It is discovered that in India, modernization has not had the intended effect, since the
relationship between caste and class has neither disappeared nor diminished significantly. One
simply cannot overlook the generations of privilege that lead an average Brahmin to make a
name. Not only is this issue systemic, but hereditary.

Although the relationship between caste and class is not entirely clear, a preliminary image of
congruence between the two does emerge. High castes are believed to be concentrated in upper
social groups such as professional, major business, and farming classes. However, we see that
they are likewise concentrated in the two regular non-manual classes. This appears to imply
that the High Castes predominate in the more ‘clean' white collar classes, and a significant
manual/non-manual barrier appears to exist, with the High Castes shunning ‘unclean' manual
labour.

This is why isolating class from caste in an Indian context is next to impossible.

What is it like actually working in a place that treats you differently?

What is it like for a person, supposedly from a “lower” caste to work in the very place that
downplays their contemporary reality?

In this survey conducted by Tejas Harad of Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), it was
found that talks of vegetarian fundamentalism and impurity that gave rise to emotions of
othering, alienation and marginalizitions.

These spaces lacked a genuine feeling of urgency in resolving the issue. India's English-
language media newsrooms continue to be urban-centric, upper-class, upper-caste, and
oblivious to the realities of huge swaths of the Indian people.

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Methodology

Data was collected by secondary data collection method. The data collected was quantitative
in nature. A total of 7 journal articles were reviewed, along with multiple surveys, reports and
newspaper articles conducted by independent news media outlets such as The Wire and News
Laundry. The objective of this research was to gain an insight into what it is like for SCS and
OBCs in an Indian newsroom, lest there are any. Therefore a review of literature was the best
method to understand what the state of Indian journalism in the 21st century is, especially in
reference to caste-based segmentation.

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Conclusion

The Bahujan samaj’s lack of agency, autonomy, and vocality, which is also visible in
newsrooms, is badly impacted and amplified by this sort of discourse, in which disadvantaged
people are unavoidably regarded as a source of difficulty and difficulties. It is necessary now
more than ever for people belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes to have a
seat at the table. It may be a long time before the Indian public recognizes the primitive point
of view on people it has and decides to eradicate it, it may never happen, but the need of the
hour calls for more representation of people who have been inter-generationally mistreated for
being born in the wrong household. The people must hold the media accountable and challenge
not its work culture of non-inclusivity but also its double standards and questionable ethics.

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References

Bhatia, S., Sundar Sridhar, S., Chandna, T., & Lone, M. D. (2019). Who tells our stories
matters? Oxfam. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BsyiTPDIBh9mFArtvPnNSKMoZ-
Kjlcp6/view
Fonseca, A. F., Bandyopadhyay, S., Louçã, J., & Manjaly, J. A. (2019). Caste in the News: A
Computational Analysis of Indian Newspapers. Social Media + Society, 5(4),
205630511989605. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119896057
BBC News. (2019, October 1). India top court recalls controversial caste order.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49889815

Caste is not dead: Survey reveals isolation of bahujan journalists. (2020, March). Thomas
Reuters Foundation. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-
08/RISJ_Final%20Report_Tejas%20Harad_2020_FINAL%20%282%29.pdf
Vaid, D. (2008). An Empirical Exploration of the Relationship between Caste, Class and
Mobility in India. Yale University.
https://www.mcgill.ca/iris/files/iris/Panel8.2Vaid.pdf

Have reservations helped in erasing historical injustices in India? The Economic Times.
(n.d.). https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/have-
reservations-helped-in-erasing-historical-injustices-in-
india/articleshow/48784238.cms?from=mdr.

Kureel, P. (2021). Indian Media and Caste: Of Politics, Portrayals and Beyond. CASTE / A
Global Journal on Social Exclusion, 2(1), 97–108.
https://doi.org/10.26812/caste.v2i1.261 Jaffrelot, C. (2006). The Impact of Affirmative
Action in India: More Political than Socioeconomic. India Review, 5(2), 173–189.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14736480600824516
Subedi, M. (2014). Some Theoretical Considerations on Caste. Dhaulagiri Journal of
Sociology and Anthropology, 7, 51–86. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v7i0.10437

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