CHENNAI, INDIA, December 29, 2007: Historically, brahmin caste Indians as priests and scholars led privileged lives in India. However the life of privilege, especially in India’s larger cities, has been replaced with a much different existence. The article explains, “Brahmins have been advisers to Maharajas, Mughals and military rulers. Under British rule, they served as administrators, a position they kept after Indian independence in 1947. But in today’s India, high-caste privileges are dwindling, and with the government giving extensive preferences to the lower-caste majority, many brahmins are feeling left out of the economy’s rapid expansion. The reverse discrimination is rooted in Indian history and politics. For decades, brahmins were resented for their dominance of the government, economy and culture.”
R. Parameswaran, a 29-year-old school teacher in Chennai is suffering the repercussions of the situation. “In Tamil Nadu, nearly 70% of government jobs and public-college slots are reserved for people from lower castes and other historically disadvantaged groups. Although he says he graduated near the top of his high-school class and had strong test scores, Mr. Parameswaran couldn’t get into any of the state engineering colleges. His family had to borrow from friends to send him to a second-rate private college. He now teaches English at a small vocational school. On a salary of $100 a month, Mr. Parameswaran can’t afford an apartment, so he sleeps in the classroom at night,” the news release says.
Elaborating further the news piece goes on to say that on average members of the brahmin caste, who make up about 5% of India’s population of 1.1 billion, are better educated and better paid than the rest of Indian people yet close to half of brahmin households earn less than $100 a month, according to the Center for a Study of Developing Societies, a New Delhi think tank. In a perverse twist, the efforts to ward off discrimination seem to have created a new form of it.
Mr. Parameswaran continues to apply for government positions but on every application he has to declare his caste and right away he knows that he is at a disadvantage.