Missing in the Scene
Posted: July 21st, 2017WESTERNERS AND SOME Indians remain intrigued by the ‘caste system’, so I will doubtless disappoint many when I say that no such system exists. The category of caste was contested by India’s nationalist leaders in the hope it would fade, and caste discrimination, especially the practice of ‘untouchability’, was outlawed in the Constitution of India (1950). It is now reinforced by the state, which addresses it in order to enact policies of positive discrimination, known as ‘reservations’.