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Does the caste system create inequality in India and therefore add to the poverty rate?

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Does the caste system create inequality in India and therefore add to the poverty rate?

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The caste system is unique to India and is made up of a complex system of social divisions. There have been laws passed trying to equal out the social hierarchy but the caste system is still very much a functioning part of Indian life, culture, and politics.

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The social classes are characterized by religion and caste.
For 80% of India's population their social class is determined by the caste system and is determined by birth and consists of those practicing Hinduism. The social order within the caste system are the Brahmins; Kshatriyas; Vaisyas; Satras/or "Other backward class". The first three make up the high caste with the last being the lowest caste. Then the Dalits or the "untouchable" fall outside of the caste system.
Other Social classes:

The Scheduled Castes-lower castes

The Scheduled Tribes, called the Adivasis-lower castes

The Muslims- Largest minority group

The Sikhs, Jains, and Christians- Smaller minority groups

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Simple explanation of how the caste system works in India

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Simple explanation of how the caste system works in India

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The Indian Caste System - An Introduction

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Educational gaps between different social classes: 

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Educational gaps between different social classes: 

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Highest educational scores and admission to the best schools (I.e. private schools) are held by the high caste and the Sikh, Jain, and Christian households.

Higher castes are able to afford better schooling than the lower classes.

Parents within the upper classes are more likely to be educated  than the parents of the lower classes. Allowing the higher social groups greater economic strength.

Literacy rate comparisons: 81% for Brahmins, 64% for Other Backward Class, and 56% for Dalits.

Minority groups and lower classes often face humiliation, exclusion, and discrimination when placed in the same schools as the higher social classes.

Studies have shown that the inequality between social classes combined with the treatment of the lower classes could be the biggest cause of lack of success at school for the lower classes.

Studies have shown that educational opportunities for any of the different social classes could affect the ability to work and earn money as adults. As is the case anywhere, the more educated the adult the more likely they are to be successful economically.

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India has a Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minster has come under much global criticism lately for allowing hundreds of instances of violence to occur, especially since most cases were led by the Hindu majority classes against the Muslims and other minority classes. The government is being accused of encouraging the strains between religious groups.
Current confrontations between the Hindu nationalists and those in favor of free-speech is a current example being used by many claiming that this is the upper class government trying to control the lower classes by preventing their ability to express themselves and their concerns.

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Students at one of India's premier universities say the government is wielding a colonial-era sedition law as a means to crush dissent. The government says it's safeguarding public security.

At New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, the arrest last week of student union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges has paralyzed the school and aroused a heated national debate about the state of free speech under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

University students have been holding marathon rallies on campus, which has been locked down since police raided it, looking for students who might have fallen afoul of India's little-used sedition law.

The clash pits ultra-conservative forces of Narendra Modi against the university with detractors calling the tax-payer funded school "a nest of anti-national activity."

Tensions erupted at the university after students organized an event last week to protest the hanging in 2013 of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist convicted of a 2001 terrorist attack on India's Parliament.

Some at the gathering shouted anti-India slogans that condemned Guru's execution. "Afzal, your death will bring revolution," one slogan said. "India should shatter into pieces," said another.

A rival student group aligned with Modi's ruling party complained to police that there was "anti-national" activity on campus.

Police are combing videos of the event to determine who all may have engaged in such sloganeering. They are pursuing activists affiliated with the Democratic Students Union (DSU), described as ultra-left leaning. Kumar, the one student known to be arrested, is due in court Wednesday. He reportedly told police he criticized Modi but did not utter anti-India statements.

JNU is sometimes likened to the University of California, Berkeley, with left-wing traditions and distinguished ranks of graduates including prominent politicians, journalists and artists.

Prahash Karat, the former general secretary of the Communist Party and former student union president, addressed students this week, declaring, "JNU is a prime target for this [Modi] regime."

"There is a plan," Karat said, "to impose their political and ideological hegemony over all these [academic] institutions."

Since Modi's rise to power, some of his most devoted followers have pursued a hard-line agenda: They have incited against those who eat cow meat, demanded the revision of history books and tried to restrict the way Indians consume entertainment.

Like-minded demonstrators gathered this week outside the university gate, fortified by police, to oppose the JNU students. Shouting approval of the Modi government crackdown, they chanted, "JNU traitors should be hanged."

Nalin Kohli, a spokesman for Modi's ruling party, says the student protest against Afzal Guru's hanging should not be protected as free speech.

"This was about recognizing a terrorist as a martyr, rejecting due process of law and calling those who had given the judgment as murderers, murder by the Supreme Court. And therefore it becomes far more serious, and obviously an investigation is bound to happen," Kohli said.

But Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde doubts that sedition can be proven - because, he says, it requires speech to cross the line into action.

"The law says unless there is an actual incitement to violence, there is no sedition," Hegde said in a Times Now television broadcast.

Om Prasad, who is pursuing a doctorate in history at the university, notes that Mohandas Gandhi was tried by the British under the same sedition law now being invoked against student leader Kumar.

He says a warning by India's home minister that anyone making anti-India slogans will "not be spared" has sent a chill through the campus.

"I think it is more a case of actually criminalizing dissent," he says. "It's a larger witch hunt for people who don't agree with the agenda of the government."

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Protests Widen As India Debates When Speech Is Sedition

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Students at one of India's premier universities say the government is wielding a colonial-era sedition law as a means to crush dissent. The government says it's safeguarding public security. At New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, the arrest last week of student union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges has paralyzed the school and aroused a heated national debate about the state of free speech under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Protest and violence breaking out because of the caste system.

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Protest and violence breaking out because of the caste system.

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Recently India has had to deploy thousands of troop to control the protests and violence breaking out because of the caste system and groups wanting to be recategorized. Under India's constitution the government is obligated to contribute to the welfare of any caste that falls under the title of "Other Backward Class" by helping provide government jobs, college admission, and prevent discrimination. A recent example is the caste known as the Jats that live in Haryana, a northern state of India. This group wants to be recategorized to the lower caste of "OBC" in order to start receiving these benefits. However, in order for a group to have their caste changed to "Other Backward Class" they have to be found "socially and educationally disadvantaged" (McCarthy) and unfortunately the Jats are ranked fairly high in the social classification, playing a large role in agriculture and in the Haryana state assembly. India's fast growing population and lack of jobs are causing the Jat's unrest and their need for government assistance. The Jats are not alone, there are other castes in other states that also want to be recategorized to this lower caste.
There are some members of the "Other Backwards Class" that are upset over these castes wanting to be recategorized. They fear that if these groups are successful that the government will have to cut their benefits in order to provide for the new groups as well.

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Are there Inequalities in the Village/Rural Life VS Urban Life? If so does it contribute to the poverty rate?...

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Are there Inequalities in the Village/Rural Life VS Urban Life? If so does it contribute to the poverty rate?...

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69% of India's population lives in rural areas versus the 31% living in Urban areas. However, many families and individuals are facing the decision to migrate to more urban areas. They are leaving in order to have a better life. There are more job opportunities, amenities, and basic infrastructures, such as roads, schools that provide higher than primary level education, and hospitals, in urban areas. Many villages do not have access to good schools or health facilities. This migration provides the children and the women more opportunities; benefiting the whole family as well as the individuals.

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The government has placed into effect acts/programs to help improve rural employment.

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The government has placed into effect acts/programs to help improve rural employment.

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Studies are being done on these programs to see what kind of impact they are having and what kind of modifications might need to be made.
One such act, the Mahatma Gandhi Nation Rural Employment Guarantee Act,  was put in place to in order to reduce rural poverty as well as increase social security in the rural areas.
This program was studied in depth, and included the social inclusion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in all of the 615 rural districts. Research found that due to involvement in the program there was an increase in employment in the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes households. Overall the study found that with more people working that there was a reduction to rural poverty. The research also showed that in agricultural areas the wages increased after the implementation of the program.
One side effect of the program was that farmers were having to offer better working conditions and higher wages in order to find workers willing to work for them instead of the program. The wage increase was benefiting the laborers, however it was showing signs of causing small farmers real harm and aiding in driving up inflation.

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A survey done in 2015 showed that the literacy gap is shrinking between urban and rural areas however there is still a significant difference. Adult (15 years old and older) literacy rates in urban areas was at 64% versus 86% in urban areas. Once the combined ages from aged seven years and above are calculated the percentage increased to 71% for rural areas versus the 86% for urban areas. This data shows that the lack of higher education opportunities in rural areas has a significant impact on educational opportunity and literacy.

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Women in India are supposed to to have equality but due to patriarchal social order and centuries of traditions women do not receive equality.

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In India there is a considerable gap between male and female literacy rates. 83% of the overall male population of India is literate versus 67% of the overall female population. The gap is closing but not fast enough. This gap is keeping many Indian families in poverty and is keeping the nation behind in its efforts to grow and develop. There is a huge difference in literacy rates between the different states. With literacy rates being the highest in the more developed/ urbanized states and the lowest in the least developed states.

Unfortunately due to the patriarchal social order and traditions male children are favored over female children. More families are willing to put more effort and expense into getting their sons to a school, even if it is not close to their village, but are often not willing to go through the effort and expense for a female child. This causes issues later as an uneducated adult female will not understand the importance of education for her own children.

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The type of work women in India do, the  conditions under which they work, and their opportunities for advancement often differs greatly from that of the men. Research has shown that If a woman can get a job through one of the government programs it is viewed as much more acceptable, as it is considered working for the government and viewed as a more respected position. Research on  government programs, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, has shown wage increases and a decrease in the male to female wage difference within these programs. However, the percentage of women among the highly paid and valued jobs is still very small.

Research has shown that even when women are working the same job as a male co-worker she is paid less and often has to work longer hours. Statistics show that the gap is closing between gender diverse pay, however; the gender pay gap in India for the year 2013 was still  24.81%.

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Women in the workforce based on religion

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Women in the workforce based on religion

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For many women in India working is not an option. This is especially true within the lower social classes. The Scheduled Tribes of remote villages are deeply entrenched in tradition. For some of these villages the custom of begging to survive is more desired than a female going out and getting a job. The village male elders can try to prevent them from working.
The New York times author, Ellen Barry, recently wrote of a group of such women and their fight for the right to keep working at a meat processing plant. As a result of their battle to keep working they, and their families, were threatened and abused and ultimately ostracized from their village. They were even treated like ghosts by their own extended family members. The women finally won the right to keep working in court however the elders and men in the village, that did not agree with this ruling, threatened to kill the women and hospitalized one woman's husband. After this incident, the women no longer tried to fight against the customs of their village.
Barry wrote that according to statistics the percentage of women in the workforce in India is dropping. According to her research this percentage had dropped from 37% to 27% from 2005-2012.

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Marking International Women's Day, India's Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha has announced that the Air Force will induct its first female fighter pilots this summer.

"As of now, three women trainees have volunteered to join the fighter stream. They are under the second phase of their training," Raha said, according to The Times of India.

He said they will enter the force "once they complete their training and are at par with their male colleagues," with the induction ceremony scheduled for June 18.

In India, women "currently comprise just 2.5 percent of the armed forces, working mostly in non-combat roles," according to the BBC. In the nation's Air Force, women have been flying helicopters and transport planes since 1991, Raha said.

The BBC adds:

"In 2014, Mr. Raha had expressed reservations about inducting women fighter pilots, saying that 'women by nature are not physically suited for flying fighter planes for long hours, especially when they are pregnant or have other health problems.'

"But in October, he changed his stance, saying the air force was planning to induct women fighter pilots 'to meet the aspirations of young women of India.' "

The U.S. Air Force has allowed female fighter pilots since the early 1990s. In 2013, NPR's Rachel Martin spoke with Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the Air Force's first female fighter pilot, about gender in the Air Force.

"Being the first female fighter pilot, there was a lot of attention and the attention wasn't what I wanted," she said. "I just wanted to fly fighters. But it was a significant change in policy and it was something very new and different. ... It was hard to blend in and be part of the squadron when there were media requests and interviews and such."

Leavitt, who also became the first female fighter wing commander, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Of actually flying a fighter jet, she described it as a "pretty incredible feeling."

"They are very powerful aircraft, as you can imagine, highly maneuverable and very lethal," she said.

Read and listen to her full interview here.

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Happy International Women's Day! India To Induct Female Fighter Pilots

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Marking International Women's Day, India's Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha has announced that the Air Force will induct its first female fighter pilots this summer. "As of now, three women trainees have volunteered to join the fighter stream. They are under the second phase of their training," Raha said, according to The Times of India.

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Barry, Ellen. "In India, a Small Band of Women Risk It All for a Chance to Work." The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 January 2016. Web. 24 February 2016.

Borooah, Vani K. "Social Identity and Educational Attainment: The Role of Caste and Religion in Explaining Differences between Children in India." Journal of   Development  Studies 48.7 (2012): 887-903. Academic Search Premier. Web. 03 April 2012

George, Nirmala. "Amnesty Criticizes India for Intolerance of Dissent." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 24 Feb. 2016. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

Joseph, Manu. "Smart Cities Could Hold Hope for India's Rural Poor." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Sept. 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.

McCarthy, Julie. "India Sends Soldiers To Area Of Caste Protest; At Least 10 Dead." NPR. NPR, 21 Feb. 2016. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

McCarthy, Julie. "Protests Widen As India Debates When Speech Is Sedition." NPR. NPR, 16 Feb. 2016. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.

PTI. "Literacy Rate at 71% in Rural India, 86% in Urban: Survey - The Economic Times." The Economic Times. NSSO, 30 June 2015. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.

Reddy, D. Narasimha, A. Amarender Reddy, and M. C. S. Bantilan. "The Impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on Rural  Labor Markets and Agriculture." India Review 13.3 (2014): 251-73. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Aug. 2014

Varkkey, Biju, and Rupa Korde. "Gender Pay Gap in the Formal Sector in India (2006-2013)." Gender Pay Gap in India 2013. Wage Indicator Data Report, Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

Wagner, Laura. "Happy International Women's Day! India To Induct Female Fighter Pilots." NPR. NPR, 08 Mar. 2016. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

Wood, Michael. "The Indian Caste System - An Introduction." YouTube. BBC Documentary, 18 Oct. 2011. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.

"Literacy And Level of Education." Census of India:. The Registrar General & Census Commissioner, 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.

The World Bank Group. "Rural Population (% of Total Population)." Rural Population (% of Total Population). World Bank Group, 2016. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.