India's river of life sweeps you along in a torrent of sounds, faces, smiles, smells and above all of distinct and individual-looking people. This diversity feels unlike that of the familiar modern metropolis. Many of the faces appear to be inhabiting their own universes, set off from the people around them. Some find this daunting. For others, it's an exhilarating contrast to the world's conformism. Welcome to the caste system.
Hereditary caste permeates Indian life to an extent that is hard for the outsider to appreciate. It defines almost everyone, and is elaborated through a myriad of sub-castes. A recent article in the Indian press claimed that Indians spend more time thinking about their positions in social hierarchies than any other people in the world. Castes are not static. Famously, the Bengali poet Tagore's sub-grouping was supposed originally to have eroded its caste status because an ancestor's food had once passed beneath the shadow thrown by a Muslim. Thereafter, they were recognised as a distinct and sullied minority. Once established, these boundaries are celebrated and preserved through marriage, and the group's particular characteristics become increasingly reinforced. Given India's history of ancient migrations, there is often a semi-obscured racial base beneath these strata. Looking around, the mingled crowd resolves into distinctive groups and individuals. The river has many eddies.
The new India is putting this system under some strain. The country has just announced a 9 per cent growth in annual GDP. Capital is accumulating in fresh hands at a dizzying rate. But old mores are reasserting themselves in novel ways. Today's "Suitable Boy" is identified through community (caste-based) websites—so much easier for checking the lineage. Similarly, job applicants are sifted through the identifying markers of location, appearance, name, schooling and background. And notoriously, 60 years after independence, many Indians still vote their caste rather than cast their vote.
This intense hierarchical focus has a dark side. The new wealth is largely caste wealth. If you're out in India, you're remorselessly out. There is a mighty chasm between the majority castes and the Dalit population—often known in the west as "untouchables"—a 160m-strong group which is still considered to be unworthy, impure, unfit. Even today, its members are routinely excluded from temples and made to use separate eating utensils from other Hindus. In rural areas they are often grievously abused, not least by the police. In a bid to escape this humiliation, many are converting to Buddhism. In December 2006, under external pressure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted that "untouchability" remains a "blot on humanity." This March, the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination went further, issuing a report which found that de facto segregation of Dalits persists in India. It highlighted their systematic abuse, including torture and extrajudicial killings, an "alarming" extent of sexual violence against Dalit women, and caste discrimination in post-tsunami relief. The subjugation of the Dalits forms an instinctive part of the rest of India's sense of superiority and self-worth.
What to do? Despite India's constitutional commitment to equality, the sufferings of the Dalit and tribal peoples in India are routinely ignored by the government and affluent classes. Reports are shelved. Local funding to charities chokes off when potential benefactors realise that the management is composed of Dalits. Outsourcing jobs are quietly forwarded to southeast Asians rather than passed to local Dalits. And the great background roar of rural abuse gets cursory coverage in the media.
One enterprising group of Dalits, based in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra, has been turning to the internet for relief. Outraged at having murder ignored in the local press, the group, calling itself "StopAtrocity," has formed its own investigating organisation. It has set up helplines, created press kits and thrown resources into exploring underreported incidents, interviewing people on the spot, taking pictures, writing up their findings. The results are published on a blog aimed at an international readership; they calculate that external coverage will provide them with domestic leverage. The world seems to be noticing. One particularly grim report of a massacre last autumn attracted 90,000 hits. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a story on it earlier this year. Press coverage followed. Channel 4 has been in touch.
The river is deep. But if you listen carefully, perhaps you can just make out the sound of rapids ahead.
