A Deeper Look at Caste and Riches in India

“If education does not create a need for the best in life, then we are stuck in an undemocratic, rigid caste society.” – Sargent Shriver

“As far back as he can remember, people told Hari Kishan Pippal that he was unclean, with a filthiness that had tainted his family for centuries,” according to an Associated Press story called Indian outcast millionaire mulls caste, riches.

“Teachers forced him to sit apart from other students. Employers sometimes didn’t bother to pay him.” It is mind boggling to think that in a modern, open society like India, this kind of awful injustice still happens. Dalits, who are the bottom of the social caste system, suffer terrible persecution. At the bottom of the social food chain of Hinduism, members of this outcast community cannot even eat with people from higher castes. Their situation is as bad as that of American blacks during Jim Crow segregation. The suffer slurs, taunts, and all forms of malice.

Many Hindus believe if a person is high-caste now, it’s because they were virtuous in a past life. If they are low-caste, it’s because you were evil. This is kind of hard to argue with that if you’re in the high caste. In India, b irth order is also a key factor. If someone is born of parents who are of a certain status then they receive the same status. There is no way to rise above it or escape from it unless a person is able to replace their identity.

And that is exactly what Pippal did.

He is a very wealthy entrepreneur. In fact, with his multiple businesses, Pippal is richer that most people at the top of India’s caste system. “In my heart I am dalit. But with good clothes, good food, good business, it is like I am high-caste,” Pippal said. Among his holdings are a publishing company and a car dealership. While Brahmin’s are considered the highest caste, Pippal also owns a hospital where he hires Brahmin doctors.

All of this has vast implications upon India’s emergence into an industrialized nation. In that transition, the caste system will see, perhaps, it’s greatest challenge. As more and more capitalist companies seek to employ and sell products to anyone they can, the country’s practices are bound to change. It’s much harder to separate the haves from the have-nots when there is plenty to go around.


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