"India's Promise"-Affirmative Action
Wednesday, May 23, 2007PAUL KANGAS: India's caste system dates back thousands of years and rests on a social hierarchy tied to ancestry and traditional jobs. As India modernizes, some argue caste identity is becoming less important. But many of India's untouchables disagree. Tonight, in our series "India's Promise," Darren Gersh explains why some Indians say it's time for an aggressive dose of affirmative action to right old wrongs.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Raju Kumar is an MBA student about to launch a career in India's booming economy. All he has to do is finish a 200-plus-page case study on Adidas's marketing strategy. Raju is also a Paswan, one of India's caste of untouchables, the lowest caste in the ancient Hindu social hierarchy - dalits, as they are called here.
RAJU KUMAR: That is the name of my family for very long. It's going generation by generation.
GERSH: For centuries, dalits were forbidden to take up a trade or start a business. Dalit intellectuals say that discrimination persists. Not a single top Indian model, leading Bollywood actor or major newspaper editor is an untouchable. Raju has gone to the best schools in India, but even he says caste is a concern, especially for people who have not had the same opportunities he did.
KUMAR: Caste system, yeah, it is important, in the sense that people from the backward family who wanted to rise themselves need reservations. So that is what India is going all about, reservations, anti-reservation.
GERSH: What Indians call "reservations" Americans would call "quotas" and India has a lot of them. Almost half of all government jobs are set aside for untouchables and other victims of historical discrimination. It is the world's largest experiment in affirmative action. In a nation with more diverse religions, languages and cultures than all of Europe put together, India is struggling to find a way to bring opportunity to everyone. Government plans to establish reservations in university admissions are tied up in India's supreme court. Now the debate is shifting to the private sector. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath says Indian companies need to fight caste discrimination.
KAMAL NATH, INDIAN COMMERCE MINISTER: There has to be social justice as much as there's going to be all-inclusive growth, and if the private sector does not address this issue themselves, then government has to step in.
GERSH: JJ Irani is leading the industry effort to head off a reservations mandate. Instead, Indian industry is proposing a voluntary plan similar to affirmative action in the United States.
JAMSHED IRANI, CONFEDERATION OF INDIAN INDUSTRY: Indian industry has finally woken up and has, in fact, even hinted that there will be positive discrimination in favor of these people, which means that all things being equal, if there is one from these castes, we will give him the job.
GERSH: Industry is also pledging scholarships for dalit students and funding for dalit entrepreneurs. But Raju Kumar says voluntary action may not be enough to overcome the preference for hiring upper caste Indians.
KUMAR: They have advantage. (INAUDIBLE) The people from same caste meets and they will take him as compared to others.
GERSH: Irani says industry will fight any attempts by the government to impose mandatory reservations on the private sector.
IRANI: And the attention that we are paying now from the point of view of education, employability, entrepreneurship, all these things we are encouraging amongst these castes, that attention will be taken up from those programs to go to lawyers and fight it. It will become a legal issue.
GERSH: Even if reservations were imposed, industry argues there are not enough skilled dalits to fill the jobs set aside. But as Raju scans the want ads preparing to enter the job market, he says the only thing lower-caste people need is an opportunity.
KUMAR: I can say that backward class people are not bad. They are also talented. They can also give a good output. So I don't think there is an issue.
GERSH: The debate over reservations in the private sector is in its early stages. But in the caste-dominated politics of modern India, political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta says private sector reservations could drive a wedge between the haves and have nots in India.
PRATAP BHANU MEHTA, PRESIDENT, CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH: I think the worry is that reservations are a cheap substitute for not doing the things that really empower people which is ultimately money and skills. And those are two things government is not willing to provide.
GERSH: Which may be why many lower caste Indians are beginning to demand a place in India's booming private sector. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Delhi.
KANGAS: Tomorrow, as we continue our series "India's Promise," we'll look at India's education system and why it is not making the grade for either students or businesses.
