Despite decades of reservation policies aimed at addressing historical injustices, the socio-economic condition of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in India remains dire, as highlighted by Sukhadeo Thorat, former Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Delivering the Dr. K. Mathew Kurian Memorial Lecture 2024 on “Why do inter-social group inequalities still persist? Insights from Theories and Empirical Evidence,” organized by the Inter University Centre for Social Science Research and Extension (IUCSSRE), Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), in association with the K.R. Narayanan Chair and the K. Mathew Kurian Chair at MGU, Thorat shed light on the persistent disparities entrenched within the caste system. He emphasized that SCs rank the highest in terms of landlessness, illiteracy, lack of access to education, and minimal representation in the private sector. Across all development indicators, including malnutrition and hunger, SCs continue to lag far behind higher castes.
Thorat highlighted how educational attainment exemplifies the principle of graded inequality—a defining feature of the caste system. Untouchables consistently occupy the lowest rungs of educational achievement, while middle castes perform somewhat better, and higher castes rank at the top. This hierarchy, rooted in systemic discrimination, is compounded by inequalities in wealth, income, and access to resources. Lower-income groups within lower castes face particular challenges in pursuing education, as opportunities are limited by both economic constraints and entrenched caste-based discrimination.
He noted that the caste system enforces fixed civil, cultural, and economic rights for each caste, perpetuating rigid hierarchies that restrict lower castes from accessing the privileges and opportunities available to higher castes. These restrictions extend into critical areas such as labour, land ownership, credit access, and services. Even in a market economy, the principles of the caste system operate through mechanisms like occupational immobility, ensuring that lower castes remain excluded from higher-paying and more secure occupations. Thorat pointed out that this systemic exclusion and discrimination, particularly in labour and employment, continues to drive disparities in income and opportunities. He further noted that caste-based wage gaps vary significantly across income levels, with discrimination being more pronounced in the upper quintiles of wage distribution. Occupational segregation reinforces these inequalities, with SCs and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) disproportionately concentrated in low-paying and less secure jobs.
Thorat also observed that caste-based discrimination extends beyond Hindu society and affects converted communities such as Christians and Muslims, although not to the same extent as within Hinduism. This spillover of caste practices highlights the pervasive nature of the system and its ability to adapt to different social and religious contexts. Over the past fifty years, development benefits have been distributed unevenly, often favouring higher castes and leaving marginalized communities to contend with persistent exclusion based on caste, ethnicity, gender, and religion.
Graded caste inequality, an entrenched aspect of the caste system, manifests across interconnected dimensions such as disparities in income, poverty, education, and human development indicators. Much of this inequality is rooted in disparities in asset ownership, such as agricultural land and enterprises, as well as unequal access to higher education. The lack of access to land, credit, and other productive resources perpetuates economic insecurity among SCs, keeping them trapped in cycles of poverty. Wage gaps between SCs and higher castes further illustrate the systemic discrimination within the labour market, with the impact being particularly severe in higher-paying occupations.
While reservation policies aim to address these structural barriers, the persisting challenges point to the deep-rooted nature of caste-based discrimination. Affirmative action was designed to ensure that historically marginalized groups receive equal rights and opportunities, reflecting the principle that all individuals are born equal and deserve to be treated as such. However, the persistence of economic and social inequalities, compounded by systemic exclusion, highlights the need for more comprehensive and sustained efforts to address caste-based disparities and ensure genuine equity in Indian society, he said.
In response to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling advocating for sub-classification within the reservation system for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), Thorat emphasized that reservation policies have provided substantial benefits to economically weaker SCs, even though their representation remains largely restricted to lower-level jobs. He countered the perception that better-off Dalits dominate the allocation of reserved seats or vacancies, calling it a misleading claim. Thorat also addressed the proposal to base reservations on economic criteria, arguing that this approach assumes economic advancement eliminates barriers to mobility. However, he pointed out that such a view lacks support from both theoretical and empirical evidence. Economic discrimination theory highlights that exclusion is driven by group identity—such as race, religion, caste, or gender—rather than individual economic status. In cases of identity-based exclusion, like untouchability, discrimination targets the group as a whole, regardless of an individual’s economic position.
The session was chaired by Michael Tharakan, former Vice Chancellor of Kannur University. K.M. Seethi, Director, IUCSSRE, delivered the welcome address, and Rajesh Komath, Coordinator of KR Narayanan Chair proposed the vote of thanks.
The Memorial Lecture is instituted in honour of Dr. K. Mathew Kurian, a distinguished thinker, former Rajya Sabha member, founder-director of the Indian School of Social Sciences, and founding editor of Social Scientist. He also served as the Economic Advisor to the first Kerala State Planning Board formed in 1967 before his tenure as a Rajya Sabha member. Dr. Mathew Kurian also established the Indian Institute of Regional Development Studies at Kottayam in the 1980s.
