Many first-generation learners study hard to get admitted into ‘elite’ institutions in the hope of getting placed with a good organization at the end of the course, which will eventually fulfil their dream of achieving financial independence and break caste-sanctioned norms. How does this play out, though? In this article, I will delve into some research conducted around this issue and try to draw some conclusions from some real-life experiences too.
The elite labour market and job selection are set up in a way to naturally benefit privileged upper-caste candidates.
Casteism And Job Interviews
“Using data on the IIM-Ahmedabad’s 2006 batch of MBA graduates, we find that graduates belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes get significantly lower wages (19% lower in domestic jobs and 35% lower when foreign jobs are included) than those in the general category,” according to a paper titled ‘Discrimination in an Elite Labour Market? Job placements at IIM-Ahmedabad‘.
The research revolves around the fact that companies preferred ‘high scoring candidates‘ and that candidates from SC and ST communities were offered low packages as compared to their counterparts because they scored ‘less‘.
What is to be noted is that one more parameter played a role in the selection of candidates termed as “Facial Attractiveness”. The research mentions that facially attractive candidates were preferred by companies irrespective of their scores. The research failed to collect data on who were these “facially unattractive” candidates and I feel that perhaps the research was just another coverup of classic caste-based discrimination.
“Marks Mayawati Nahi, Mai Dunga” And Casteism In Education
One more myth I want to address and debunk is that ‘SC/ST candidates score low marks or don’t perform well despite clearing the entrance exams. Professor Anoop Kumar, in an interview, recalled a very specific incident of a teacher telling him “Marks Mayawati nahi, main Dunga” (Mayawati won’t give you marks, I will). This is the situation in one of the oldest engineering colleges in the country named HBTI, Kanpur.
He explains the role communication plays over pure talent and how these institutions are designed to serve only the English-speaking privileged class of the country. He also sheds light on how people can identify caste merely based on one’s last name which the research paper concluded that it was difficult to find the caste of an individual disapproving the conclusions made in the paper.
Job Advertisement Respondency And Discrimination
Dalit respondents to job advertisements were less likely to be called up than upper-caste respondents with the same qualifications was found in an experiment conducted by Sukhdev Thorat and Paul Attewell. Also, people who hold privileged positions within large organizations develop a sense that a certain kind of person is especially effective in their roles leading many managers to favour potential recruits who are socially similar to themselves, a process Kanter(1977) has termed as “Homosocial reproduction”. Conversely, stereotypes are held about certain out-groups that are unsuitable for employment. This is precisely what is happening in Indian institutions.
Indian society projects itself as a modern society in reality. It hasn’t come out of the medieval age. Many would still argue that caste is a thing of the past and there is no discrimination based on caste in modern India but only the ways of discrimination have changed but the mentality remains the same. The only thing that compliments India’s modernity is that it has undergone a cosmetic change to create an illusion of modernity among the masses.
It is high time now and hence government needs to introduce some policy interventions pushing positive discrimination towards the marginalized and at the same time take some steps to eliminate negative perceptions towards the group of historically oppressed.