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Posted by u/[deleted] 2 years ago ( 3 2 3

& About Community
755 Some caste statistics.
' Best of r/India
r/india
Some statistics regarding caste and the disparity between the "upper" and the "lower"
castes. The Official Subreddit for India

Using The NSS 2012 survey data, the population of percentage of the social groups
967k 2.9k
Members Online
were :

Social group Population %

+ Created Jan 25, 2008
SC 18.8
Join
ST 8.7

OBC 44

General category/Others 28.5

According this study, about 52% of Brahmins and 24% of Forward castes practice
untouchilbilty, not surprising that some of them end up bringing their casteism even
abroad, even for educated Brahmins and Forward castes, who recieved some post-grad
Back to Top
education, 48% and 27% respectively practiced untouchilbilty.

By Area(Rural/Urban)

Area Untouchilibility rate

Rural 30%

Urban 20%

Overall 27%

By social group/caste

Social group/caste Untouchibility rate

Brahmin 52%

Forward 24%

OBC 33%

SC 15%

ST 22%

Others 13%

By religion

Religion Untouchibility rate

Hindu 30%

Muslim 18%

Christian 5%

Sikh 23%

Buddhist 1%

Jain 35%

Tribal 5%

Others 0%

By education level

Education level Untouchibility rate

Illetrate 30%

1-4 std 26%

5-9 std 29%

10-11 std 25%

12th std/some college 24%

Graduate/Some dipolma 24%

By class

Class/Income percentile Untouchibility rate

<20 33%

20-40 29%

40-60 26%

60-80 24%

>80 23%

By regions

Region Untouchilbility rate

Hills 38%

North 21%

North-central 40%

Central Plains 49%

East 16%

West 13%

South 17%

Hills : Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand

North : Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, Delhi

North-central : Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand

Central Plains : Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh

West : Gujarat, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Maharastra, Goa

East : Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya,

Assam, West Bengal, Odisha

South : Andra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry

Regarding representation in media,

Of the 121 newsroom leadership positions – editor-in-chief, managing editor, executive

editor, bureau chief, input/output editor – across the newspapers, TV news channels,
news websites, and magazines under study, 106 are occupied by upper castes, five by
other backward classes and six by people from minority communities. The caste of four
individuals could not be identified.

1. Three out of every four anchors (among a total of 40 anchors in Hindi channels
and 47 in English channels) of debates are upper caste. Not one is Dalit, Adivasi,
or OBC
2. For over 70% of their primetime debate shows, news channels draw the majority
of the panellists from the upper castes
3. No more than 5% of all articles in English newspapers are written by Dalits and
Adivasis. Hindi newspapers fare slightly better at around 10%
4. Around 72% of bylined articles on news websites are written by people from the
upper castes
5. Only 10 of the 972 articles featuring on the cover pages of the 12 magazines
under study are about issues related to caste.

According to this

1. About 89% of leadership positions in English TV news channels belonged to the

general category.
2. About 76% of flagship show anchors belong to the general category.
3. Only 5.6% and 1% of panellists across the surveyed channels belong to SC and ST
categories respectively
4. For Hindi news channels 100% of leadership belonged to the general category
and 80% of the anchors in primetime shows
5. On discussion of caste issues, 69% of the panellists belonged to the general
category across all the surveyed channels.
6. Out of the 16,000 articles written by English newspapers between October 2018
and March 2019, about 60% were written by "upper"-caste writers.
7. In Hindi newspapers, 56% of writers belonged to the general category, 8.1% to SC
and 1.1% to ST categories.
8. Among digital media outlets, 84% of all leadership positions were occupied by
those belonging to general category.
9. Articles regarding caste issues in digital media, 56% were written by those from
general category.
10. Among magazines, 56% of total output come from general category writers 6.5%
from SC/ST combined and 17 % from OBC category.

There is under-representation of Dalits in judiciary. According to this

In the past 70 years, India only had just ONE Dalit Chief Justice. Currently there are no
Dalit Chief Justice in high courts. According to this, no SC/ST person has been elevated
to the supreme court in the past 7 years or now we can say 9 years since that was
written in 2018.

In corporate also there is under representation, 93% of Indian cooperate board

members belong to the "forward"-castes, out of which Brahmins make up 45% and
Vaishyas make up about 46%.

Similarly qualified SC candidates are less likely to be hired than the general category
ones. This study shows that those with Dalit sounding names are 33% less likely to be
hired and with Muslim sounding name are 67% less likely to be hired than someone
"upper"-caste sounding name.

There is also a huge income disparity by caste, for SC/ST people, their income is almost
half of that of forward-castes. Source (page 17) Wealth/assets here is the indicator of
presennce of 33 different durable household goods like TV, air conditioner etc.

Social group Household income (in Rs./year) Wealth/Assets

SC 89,356 12.7

ST 75,216 10.2

OBC 1,04,099 14.7

FC (Brahmin) 1,67,013 18.2

FC(Non-Brahmin) 1,64,633 17.9

Overall 1,13,222 14.6

In terms of percentiles in wealth index by caste. (NFHS 2015-16, pg 31)

Social 0-20 (Poorest 20- 40- 60- 80-100 (Richest

group quntile) 40 60 80 quintile)

SC 25.9 24.2 21.9 16.7 11.3

ST 45.2 25.5 14.9 9.1 5.4

OBC 18.2 19.6 21.1 22.3 18.8

Other 9.4 15.4 18.4 22.8 34.0

A score of greater than 20 means, there is larger representation of a social group in

that quintile than overall for India. You can see the "lower"-caste have a higher
representation in the poorer quntiles. We can see that 50.1% and 70.7% and of the SC
and ST households respectively are in the two poorest quintiles.

The overall wealth/asset share of India's wealth is heavily concentrated among "upper"-
caste Hindus.

Social Household Share Wealth/asset share Per Household Asset (in Rs.
group (%) (%) lakhs)

Hindu UC 22.3 41 27.7

Hindu 35.7 30.7 13.0

OBC

SC 18.4 7.6 6.2

ST 9.1 3.7 6.2

Muslim 11.9 8 10.0

So, it's clearly not an even playing field. So, take for examples studying for entrances for
which you need books which can be quite expensive. It's highly likely that an equally
smart and hardworking reserved category student will likely score lesser marks than an
non-reserved category due to their conditions like being denied education or not
having the money to buy the books or attend the classes.

The coaching classes for such entrance exams in medical institutions often have fees
greater than Rs. 1 lakh/year and the books can cost thousands of rupees it
disproportionately favours the rich and according to PLFS(Periodic Labour Force
Survey) in 2017-18,

1. About 45% of regular workers earned less than Rs. 10,000/month.

2. About 12% of regular workers earned less than Rs. 5,000/month.
3. About 3% of regular workers earned between Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 1,00,000/month.
4. About 0.2% of regular workers earned more than Rs. 1,00,000/month.

We can clearly see that joining these classes favours the richest quintiles in which
"upper"-castes are over represented, leaving behind students from reserved categories.
Combining with they discrimination that these students on the basis of their caste, we
need reservations to create an even playing field, because even with the same income,
the discrimination on the basis of their caste still exists.

Reservations is only applicable to govt jobs which make up a tiny percentage of total
jobs in the country.

Regarding the impact of reservations on productivity. Here's a case study of the impact
of reservations in Indian Railways between 1980 to 2002. It's findings were :

The production function and data-envelopment analyses provide no evidence in

support of the claim that higher proportions of jobs filled by SCSTs are associated
with lower total factor productivity or its annual rate of change. Furthermore, under
some specifications, higher proportions of SCST employees in high-level positions –
who are most likely to be AA beneficiaries – are positively associated with higher TFP
or ∆TFP. These findings resonate very strongly with studies assessing the impact of
workforce diversity on enterprise productivity in the U.S., which have found either a
positive or null effect, but no evidence of a negative effect (Barrington and Troske
2001)

Reservation do not really harm the productivity. The reservation policies will help
increase the education level of the "lower"-castes who have been denied such
opportunity for centuries. Increasing education qualification will also help them get out
of poverty. And increasing their standard of living, therefore reducing the inequalities
between castes. It will also result in increased representation in many fields.

Affirmative action not only benefits groups that beneficiaries of it but also improved the
attitudes towards that group, increases cognitive capacities like in the case of USA.

They find that black students who probably benefited from affirmative action —
because their achievement data is lower than the average student at their colleges
— do better in the long-run than their peers who went to lower-status universities
and probably did not benefit from affirmative action. The ones who benefited are
more likely to graduate college and to earn professional degrees, and they have
higher incomes.

...

But what about other students — whites and those from a higher economic
background? Decades of research in higher education show that classmates of the
direct beneficiaries also benefit. These students have more positive racial attitudes
toward racial minorities, they report greater cognitive capacities, they even seem to
participate more civically when they leave college.

This is in the case of USA, but the concept of both is similar. Both are affirmative
actions.

Here's the level of education of those 15 years old and above by caste.

Social Not Upto Middle Secondary Higher Diploma Graduate

group literate primary (%) (%) secondary (%) (%)
(%) (%) (%)

ST 42.7 24.3 15.5 8.5 5.3 0.5 2.5

SC 39.0 23.2 16.4 10.8 6.1 0.7 2.9

OBC 31.8 21.2 17.0 14.2 8.3 1.4 4.7

Others 18.9 18.9 16.3 17.0 12.2 1.6 11.2

Overall 30.2 21.1 16.6 13.9 8.8 1.3 6.2

Here, we can see that we can see SC/ST people have lower rates of education. About
82.5% of ST and 78.6% SC people have either middle school or less than middle school
education, while for others it is 54.1%. For having education either higher secondary or
above that, it 8.9% for ST and 10.5% for SC and 28.8% for others. It's about triple the
rate of SC/ST people.

As it pointed out here, according to 2011-12 NSSO statistics, the share of casual wage
labourers by caste, the share wage labourers among SC was 63%, for OBC it was 44%,
FC it was 42% and 46% for other groups. For causal wage labourers, the share for 47%
while for it was about 33% for OBC/FC/Others. This signfies more job insecurity and
poor earnings. For the total share of causal labourers in the country, 32% of them were
SC, while they make up about 16% of the population. And also according to a survey

The survey was carried out among 1992 households in 80 villages across the states
of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in 2013. A study of 441
farm wage labourers, indicates that about 41 per cent were denied work by the high
castes due to caste prejudice. Of these, about 76 percent in grain harvesting, 20
percent in vegetable cultivation and 12 percent in drying of grains and chilly and 11
percent in domestic work were denied jobs, due to ‘polluting status’ of the
untouchables.

Even among the similar type of jobs SC/ST people have lower monthly per-capita
consumer expenditure (MPCE), indicating higher poverty. Here's MPCE (In Rs) by social
group and type of jobs. (Source, page 17)

Social group ST SC OBC Others All ST and SC and

others others
gap gap

Self-employed 1,108 1,218 1,395 1,761 1,436 37.1% 30.8%

agriculture

Self-employed in non- 1,260 1,314 1,506 1,694 1,509 25.6% 22.4%

agriculture

Regular salaried (rural) 1,735 1,803 1,984 2,240 2,002 22.5% 19.5%

Causal labour 964 1,131 1,241 1,179 1,159 18.2% 4.1%

agriculture

Casual labour non- 1,010 1,181 1,303 1,366 1,238 26.1% 13.5%
agriculutre

Others (rural) 1,307 1,445 1,879 2,346 1,893 44.2% 38.4%

Self-employed (urban) 1,814 1,770 2,088 2,936 2,415 38.2% 39.7%

Regular salaried 2,762 2,493 2,700 3,582 3,062 22.9% 30.4%

(urban)

Causal labour (urban) 1,283 1,403 1,538 1,650 1,514 22.2% 15.0%

Others (urban) 2,704 2,499 3,263 4,565 3,734 40.8% 45.3%

All (rural) 1,122 1,252 1,439 1,719 1,430 34.7% 27.2%

All (urban) 2,193 2,028 2,275 3,242 2,630 32.4% 37.4%

This paper talks about the difference in wages due to labor market discrimination.
Although it uses different data set. But that different data set also found a difference
between the wages SC/ST and non-SC/ST. In rural areas, 62% of the difference in wages
is due to endowment or explanied component and 38% is due to labor market
discrimination, while for urban areas it is 69% due endowments and 31% due to labor
market discrimination, the difference in endowments is due to different education and
location. The share of SC/ST according to 2011 census in the six biggest cities, New
Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru is 11.25% combined, while
their combined population in the country is about 25% and that too they are
concentrated on the most underdeveloped areas of these cities, where there is lack of
basic amenities like piped water and toilets. So, many live in villeges, where there is
underdeveloped infrastructure, combined with social discrimination, affecting their
access to quality education.

Some instances of social discrimination like 1,2,3. Making them clean toilets, dividing
midday meals by caste, facing casteist abuses and more.

There's also a higher rate of unemployment observed in SCs.

Social Unemployment rate Unemployment rate Unemployment rate

group (1993-94) (2004-05) (2011-12)

ST 4.2 6.5 5.6

SC 8.2 11.8 7.3

OBC N/A 7.8 5.3

Others 5.7 6.8 4.8

Overall 6 8.1 5.6

Here's unemployment rate by among the ones who received education either Higher
secondary or above that.

Social 15-24 years Higher Diploma Graduate and

group old secondary holder above

SC 15% 7.5% 14.7% 12.3%

OBC 12.5% 5.3% 12.2% 9.3%

Others 14.6% 5.7% 7.6% 8.8%

Total 13% 6.4% 10.2% 8.3%

Even the loss in employment due to lockdown affected the "lower"-castes the most.

Social Group Employment rate in Employment rate in Change

December 2019 (%) April 2020 (%) (%)

SC 44 24 -20

ST 48 33 -15

OBC 40 26 -14

"Intermediate"- 42 34 -8
castes

"Upper"-castes 39 32 -7

The decrease in employment rate of SCs is almost thrice that of "upper"-castes and for
STs and OBCs it is twice that of the "upper"-castes. This would mean that the increase in
poverty and the fall in standards of living due to this pandemic will affect the "lower"-
castes the most and hence further widening the inequalities between castes.

Untouchibility or social discrimination also effects Dalit in the entry of opening certain
businesses like food businesses. They also have the lowest relative share among self-
employed workers, meaning that they are more likely engaged in low-paying casual
labour work rather than running enterprises. About 11.8% of Non-Muslim general
category are in white collar jobs, 4.74% for non-Muslim OBC and 4.99% for Muslims,
while for SC it is 3.77% and for ST, 2.81%.

In union cabinets, the "upper-middle"-caste had share of 87.7%, the share for SC was
just 4.6%. The average age of death for Dalit woman is 14.6 years less than "upper"-
caste woman. Even after taking into other condition like drinking and sanitation, the
average of death for Dalit woman is still lesser. The life expectancy of a Dalit woman is
still 11 years lower. Source

“Even after accounting for social status differences, a gap of 5.48 years remains
between the average age of death of higher caste women and Dalit women,” the UN
report notes. “Further, the authors [of the 2013 study] applied the levels of mortality-
related factors catalogued for higher caste women and found that there is still a gap
between the life expectancy for higher caste women and Dalit women. A difference
of 11.07 years remains even after attributing the Dalit social status coefficient to
higher caste women. This means that life expectancy among Dalit women is 11
years lower than that of higher caste women despite experiencing identical social
conditions like sanitation and drinking water.”

About 61% of the the general category voted for the NDA, while the average vote for it
was 45%. Source. While simply voting for the NDA doesn't make you a Hindutvaadi , but
there is a very high probablity that you are a hindutvaadi or atleast sympathetic to RW.

According to this article, it says that only 1.5% of Indian immigrants in USA were SC/ST
and more than 90% were from the "upper"-castes, but they are only around 25-30% of
India's population, although this data is from 2003 . About 61% of the the general
category voted for the NDA, while the average vote for it was 45%. Source. While simply
voting for the NDA doesn't make you a Hindutvaadi , but there is a very high probablity
that you are a hindutvaadi or atleast sympathetic to RW. As you can see that there are
many Indian origin people in USA supporting Modi.

Even outside India, there is castiesm is still there and Dalits experience casteism from
the "upper"-castes there, for example, according to this report, there is evidence of
casteism even in USA.

1. 25% of the Dalit respondents said they had faced verbal abuse on the basis of
their caste.
2. 1 in 3 reported being discriminated against their education.
3. 2 in 3 Dalits reported being treated unfairly at the work place.
4. 60% Dalits report experiencing caste-based derogatory jokes
5. 40% of Dalits and 14% Shudras were made to feel unwelcome at their place of
worship due to their caste.
6. 20% of Dalit respondents discriminated at a place of business due to their caste
7. Over 40% of Dalit respondents have reported being rejected in Romantic
Partnership on the basis of caste.
8. 1 in 2 Dalits and 1 in 4 Shudras live in fear of their caste being outed.

So, it's not surprising that a lot of them brought their casteism even to USA considering
that the demographics that migrate there, likely to be wealthy "upper"-caste, A group
where there is a high proportion of those with castiest views. This not only make
Indians look bad and gives ammo to those with racist anti-immigrant agendas, but it
also make the lives of SC/ST people, who came there, even worse, now they can't even
escape from castiesm there.

Casteism is definitely not just a thing of past. It is rampant even today.

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[deleted] · 2 yr. ago

Saving this for whenever someone says that caste is dead. Great work OP

& 58 ' Share Report Save

CHEMICAL_SINGH · 2 yr. ago

Dude. This is fucking brilliant. We learn something new everyday.

We do tend to live in our own bubble. Thanks for sharing. Appreciate this
information a lot.

& 57 ' Share Report Save

sid4barca · 2 yr. ago

Great work putting all of this together.

& 90 ' Share Report Save

m_vPoints · 2 yr. ago

Any trend data?

& 18 ' Share Report Save

basedbhau · 2 yr. ago

This just proves real education starts from your home itself. Teach your kids ethics
and morals regarding the society. Don't brainwash them into what our ancestors
implemented, because that was inhuman and there are always consequences. This is
a new era, people should grow up.

& 15 ' Share Report Save

caffeinewasmylife · 2 yr. ago

Brilliant post OP. Thanks for putting this together.

& 63 ' Share Report Save

Saaamwise · 2 yr. ago

Oh man, thank you so much for this excellent work. Hopefully, people can realise the
gravity of this social evil in our country.

& 56 ' Share Report Save

SuicidalTorrent · 2 yr. ago

I don't want to buy fake internet points to give you fake internet gifts and its not only
because I'm broke. Please accept my gratitude for this reality check though. I think
most people who can make a difference are too busy watching the American circus
to even know what's happening and others are ignorant, living their protective
bubbles.

Or maybe its the opposite. Who knows? Apathy is the same regardless.

I too have been guilty of this. So, these days, I ignore all news about USA and click on
Indian news. It is making a difference in the recommendations I get on social media.

& 10 ' Share Report Save

rekr9 · 2 yr. ago

Our education system does not talk about it at all. Kids must be clearly educated to
not discriminate regardless of caste, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs. This is also
clear by the data posted by OP.

It's as if level of education does not change a thing.

& 10 ' Share Report Save

SuicidalTorrent · 2 yr. ago

Our education system is trash. There's 0 focus on personal development,

something that could reduce the numbers in the OP.

&4' Share Report Save

Anm97ol · 2 yr. ago

Main dalit hu meri mummy papa mujhe dalit janam diye bro commendable
work you did here though

&7' Share Report Save

DaeusPater · 2 yr. ago

For regional distribution, a more detailed figure from the same source here.

& 15 ' Share Report Save

* Comment deleted by user · 2 yr. ago

Krithin_Prakash_461 · 2 yr. ago

Tamil Nadu

Great work in putting this.. I thought education removes caste discrimination

&8' Share Report Save

rrahul_ranjan · 2 yr. ago

great work, just confirming our belief

& 19 ' Share Report Save

random_____name · 2 yr. ago

poor customer

A+++++ for your efforts in consolidating all this information together. Hats off

&7' Share Report Save

* Comment deleted by user · 2 yr. ago

Methyl_Diammine · 2 yr. ago

Kerala

Hey, great stats! One minor correction though; Justice B. Gavai is currently a serving
Dalit Supreme Court Justice.

&5' Share Report Save

Uncertn_Laaife · 2 yr. ago

A simple brilliance of data.

I am surprised (or may be not much) by how much Sikhs have a prevalent
untouchability when their Gurus formed the religion based on the equality among
all; and wanted to move away from the ills of Hinduism/Brahmanism.

Another shocking fact that education also doesn't rid of society's ill practices.

Something seriously needs to change. There's damn wrong with the so-called
modern (or backward) society we have in India.

& 12 ' Share Report Save

[deleted] · 2 yr. ago

Yeah, I didn't know about casteism among Muslims, Sikhs and Christians either,
until I saw India Untouched.

& 10 ' Share Report Save

Continue this thread

sadiyahaswhitesauce · 2 yr. ago

you know my sociology teacher denies the accuracy of this survey,i was like sure
there are limitations but you cant deny that lower castes people are facing issues
due to their caste and higher caste people.

&8' Share Report Save

dontknow_anything · 2 yr. ago · edited 2 yr. ago

Affirmative action at Graduate/Post Graduate levels can't make up for lacking

education infrastructure at the bottom level.

This chart shows that

Here's the level of education of those 15 years old and above by caste.

When a significantly more people in SC/ST don't have graduate level of education,
they would end up in worse positions and you will have continued class divide
between large sections of castes. Making free quality education till senior secondary
level to everyone even in the remotest area is the best way to deal with caste divide
and untouchability. Reservation and affirmative action are worse solutions to it (in
comparison) but have far more political output and that is the only reason they are
being pushed further rather than meaningful change.

&4' Share Report Save

piyu_sh · 2 yr. ago

Great work ! I can only imagine how much effort you'd have put in for this research. I
hope it gains more traction and more people see it. Again great work !

&3' Share Report Save

Mayank_j · 2 yr. ago

Do you work for Newslaundry? They were going to put out some data like this in
some report

&3' Share Report Save

[deleted] · 2 yr. ago

No. I don't work for them. They were also making something related to caste like
this?

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odiab · 2 yr. ago

Sawal ek, Jawab do. Phir lambiiii khamoshi...

Great post. Also important to note while untouchability might be the most pernicious
effect of casteism, there are other effects. Such as discrimination in jobs. In informal
employers such as small contractors tend to favour workers from their own or
higher caste. Widely prevalent in rural areas . Not sure if there have been any study
regarding this.

&3' Share Report Save

zigazigzig · 2 yr. ago

Forgive my complete ignorance on the matter. But what is the link between Jainism
and untouchability? I thought untouchability was a firmly Hindu concept.