Do you think castesism is still active in our country? What do you think can be the measure to stop this practice
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INDIA’S general election will take place before May. The front-runner to be the next prime minister is Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently chief minister of Gujarat. A former tea-seller, he has previously attacked leaders of the ruling Congress party as elitist, corrupt and out of touch. Now he is emphasising his humble caste origins. In a speech in January he said “high caste” Congress leaders were scared of taking on a rival from “a backward caste”. If Mr Modi does win, he would be the first prime minister drawn from the “other backward classes”, or OBC, group. He is not the only politician to see electoral advantage in bringing up the subject: caste still matters enormously to most Indians.
The country’s great, liberal constitution was supposed to end the millennia-old obsession with the idea that your place in life, including your occupation, is set at birth. It abolished “untouchability”—the practice whereby others in society exclude so-called untouchables, or Dalits, as polluting—which has now mostly disappeared from Indian society. Various laws forbid discrimination by caste. At the same time (it is somewhat contradictory) official schemes push “positive” discrimination by caste, reserving quotas of places in higher education, plus jobs in government, to help groups deemed backward or deprived. In turn, some politicians have excelled at appealing to voters by caste, promising them ever more goodies. For example Mayawati, formerly chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state (population: over 200m) and just possibly a future prime minister, leads a Dalit party. In another northern state, Bihar, parties jostle to build coalitions of caste groups. Everywhere voters can be swayed by the caste of candidates.