Turning a blind eye to caste will only make things worse for India Inc
India's population, extrapolating from the 2011 census and subsequent studies:
- Roughly 35% of Indians belong to other backward classes (OBCs).
- 20% are scheduled castes (SCs), 7% are scheduled tribals (STs).
- 18% are minorities.
- 20% are from 'privileged' castes.
So, 80% of Indians belong to 'oppressed' caste groups. If this is how society is composed, then the logical expectation is for most professions to reflect this composition somewhat roughly, even if not exactly. It is like how from a bag of 80 blue and 20 orange balls, if you pick 10, you would expect to get eight blue and two orange balls. However, society is not like a bag of random balls that follow statistical laws of large numbers.
This is the rough composition of India Inc:
- 90% of the leadership of Nifty50 companies are from 'privileged' castes.
- 95% of the 233 unicorn startup founders are from 'privileged' castes.
- 90% of the nearly 10,000 directors on corporate boards are from 'privileged' castes.
- 65% of the nearly 50,000 mid-level and senior bank officers in public sector banks belong to 'privileged' castes.
- More than three-quarters of professional positions are taken by the 20% of privileged castes.
It is clear from the data that professional success is largely a 'privileged' caste terrain. Meanwhile, the composition of the labour class is:
- 90% of the 150 million MGNREGA workers are from 'oppressed' castes.
- 100% of the 12,000-odd manual scavengers in India are from SCs/STs.
- 75% of safai karamcharis are OBCs, SCs, and STs.
- 90% of all casual labourers are from 'oppressed' castes while 35% of salaried workers are from 'privileged' groups, according to GoI labour survey data.
Whichever way one looks at the data, it is evident that 'privileged'
