Caste hierarchy in India isn't just a social issue. It's a direct challenge to the equality, human dignity and fraternity promised by the Indian Constitution.
A recent Tribune article on caste in the classroom is an uncomfortable reminder that caste didn't vanish just because India constitutionally abolished untouchability and banned discrimination. It still shapes students' educational experiences — through social attitudes, exclusion, stereotyping and assumptions about merit.
The rise in reported caste discrimination complaints at universities and colleges is especially worrying. Figures cited in the article show complaints climbing from 173 in 2019-20 to 378 in 2023-24. These numbers need careful reading: more complaints can mean more discrimination, greater awareness, better reporting systems, or a mix of all three. But they still demand serious institutional attention.
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The real question is bigger than the reservations debate.
Why should someone's birth still shape how they're seen, treated or valued?
Caste is an inherited status. A child doesn't choose the caste they're born into. Yet that inherited identity can still dictate marriage, social ties, housing, education, employment and community standing.
This is where constitutional principles have to become social reality.
Article 14 guarantees equality before the law. Article 15 bans discrimination on specific grounds, and Article 17 abolishes untouchability. These provisions are a powerful constitutional rejection of inherited social exclusion.
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But laws alone can't erase a centuries-old social hierarchy.
So the goal must be bolder: not just punishing caste discrimination after it happens, but building a society where caste gradually loses its power to define human worth.
That doesn't mean pretending historical inequalities are gone. Nor does it mean scrapping affirmative action aimed at entrenched disadvantage. Fixing historical injustice and working toward a caste-free society aren't competing goals.
In fact, they're part of the same long-term project.
Universities carry a special burden. Higher education should be where students meet knowledge, ideas and people beyond the limits of inherited social identity. A student's intellectual ability, character and contribution shouldn't be judged through the lens of caste.
The word "merit" also needs scrutiny. Merit matters, but it doesn't exist in a social vacuum. Access to good schooling, nutrition, family resources, language, social networks and economic security can deeply shape educational outcomes.
At the same time, every discrimination allegation must be handled through transparent procedures, impartial investigation and due process. Protecting historically disadvantaged students and ensuring fairness for everyone are complementary duties.
So India needs more than committees and regulations. It needs a shift in social consciousness.
Schools should teach caste history honestly and sensitively — not to fuel divisions, but to understand how inherited inequality developed and how it can be overcome.
Universities should have credible, accessible grievance mechanisms. Institutions should monitor discrimination without creating new forms of exclusion. Teachers and administrators need training to spot subtle stereotyping and humiliation.
Most importantly, Indian society must challenge the underlying assumption that human worth can be inherited.
Dr BR Ambedkar knew political democracy couldn't survive indefinitely without social democracy. Equality before the law is essential, but fraternity matters just as much — because a society can't be truly equal when people still see each other through inherited hierarchies.
This lesson goes beyond India.
Malaysia has much to learn from India's ongoing experience. Our own multicultural society has ethnic, religious, linguistic and socioeconomic divides that can harden when identity is treated as destiny. Malaysia's constitutional framework and Rukun Negara offer a foundation for a society where diversity is respected without letting inherited identity become a permanent measure of human worth.
The goal shouldn't be replacing one hierarchy with another.
It should be building a society where birth doesn't become destiny, identity doesn't become a barrier, and human dignity doesn't depend on social origin.
India's constitutional abolition of untouchability was a historic start. The unfinished task is eliminating the social mindset that made untouchability and caste hierarchy possible in the first place.
Caste shouldn't just be regulated.
Its hierarchical logic must eventually disappear from the social imagination.
That would be a far more meaningful realization of equality, fraternity and human dignity.
K.T.Maran Social Environmental Animal Activist
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