Caste Based Reservation Deepens  April 18th 2025

Caste and Employment in 2024-25

News developments through 2024 reinforced how intertwined caste realities are with employment in India, at all levels of income and profession.

A survey undertaken under the aegis of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Found that 92 % of workers cleaning urban sewers and septic tanks belong to SC, ST groups. In a first-of-its-kind attempt to enumerate people engaged in the hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in India’s cities and towns, government data gathered from over 3,000 urban local bodies in 29 States and Union Territories shows that 91.9% of the 38,000 workers profiled so far belong to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), or other backward class (OBC) communities.

Of the profiled workers, 68.9% were SC, 14.7% were OBC, 8.3% were ST, and 8% were from the general category.

The year saw the publication of a new study in the journal PLOS ONE which addressed the issue of income disadvantages faced by business owners from stigmatized castes in India. It analysed data from a nationwide survey in India to quantify the income disparity faced by Dalit business owners (who are stigmatized as untouchables) compared to other disadvantaged but non-stigmatized groups. Business owners from stigmatised groups such as Dalits experience a business income gap of around 16 per cent compared with others, including those business owners who are from communities that are disadvantaged but are not similarly stigmatised.

Caste Discrimination at the white collar workplace was highlighted in June when an IIM Bengaluru professor Gopal Das wrote to President Droupadi Murmu, accusing his colleagues of caste discrimination. He said that the premier institute was devoid of any SC ST Cell, even though 50 percent of its students were from backward communities and faced discrimination regularly.

The Courts delivered significant judgements on the sub classification of SC categories for quotas, on provisions relating to caste-based discriminatory practices in prison, and on the legality of OBC certifications issued to communities in West Bengal.

In August the Supreme Court ruled that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes can be divided into sub-groups for the purpose of reservations and employment. The verdict means that States can identify more backwards among the SC categories and can sub-classify them for separate quota within the quota. The verdict was the outcome of the three decades long activism of the Madiga leader Manda Krishna who led a small movement for the sub-categorisation of the Scheduled Castes in united Andhra Pradesh in a village in Prakasam district.

In October 2024 the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment declaring that provisions relating to caste-based discriminatory practices in prison manuals are unconstitutional, and directed all states and Union Territories to revise their Prison Manuals. A petition filed by a journalist with The Wire, Sukanya Shantha, whose 2020 report ‘From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System‘ formed the basis of the plea.

The apex court struck down a series of colonial-era rules mentioned in prison manuals across the country which reinforced caste-based division of labour, particularly targeting marginalised communities. Activists say for jail wardens, the term ‘Dalit’ is inseparable from what they call hereditary trades, such as manual scavenging, sweeping and cleaning.

And the Calcutta High Court delivered an order on the West Bengal Government’s OBC reservation policy which cancelled OBC certificates for 77 communities, a move that could potentially affect about 5 lakh people. The two-judge bench emphasised the total absence of legislative policy in the 2012 scheme that governed the State's authority to classify any group as OBC. The court found that the classification and sub-classification of OBCs carried out through several executive orders and memos were illegal.