Caste Remains the True Test of Inclusion in Corporate India
Across boardrooms from Bangalore to Delhi and inside Western corporations staffed by an increasing number of Indian employees, caste continues to influence who advances and who does not. Ignoring this reality, writes Indian scholar Disha, makes all other efforts at fostering inclusivity ring hollow.
After 2020, something changed in Indian offices. In the wake of the global reckoning with racial injustice sparked by George Floyd’s murder, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts gained momentum worldwide, including in India.
While the vocabulary may be new to corporate spaces, the spirit of DEI has long existed in India’s constitutional framework. For example, Articles 14, 15, and 17 of the Indian Constitution guarantee equality before the law, prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, and abolish untouchability. Yet despite these foundational commitments, Indian workplaces have been slow–or typically, outright reluctant–to engage meaningfully with casteism as a form of discrimination.
"...the intense pushback against caste legislation in California revealed just how fiercely caste hierarchies are protected, even outside of India’s borders."
The caste system in India is a centuries-old social hierarchy that finds its early roots in the ancient varna framework, which broadly divided society into four occupational groups: Brahmins (priests and scholars), Kshatriyas (nobles and warriors), Vaishyas (traders and commoners), and Shudras (servants and laborers). Over time, this framework became more rigid and localized, giving rise to jati—thousands of hereditary, endogamous communities that governed social status, occupation, and marriage. While varna was an abstract classification, jati shaped daily lived experience. (The word caste comes from the Portuguese term casta, meaning “breed” or “lineage.”) Outside the varna system was the so-called “untouchables,” a group subjected to extreme social ostracism and systemic violence. (Untouchables are also sometimes referred to as Dalits.)
Indian inclusivity efforts have largely followed a path set by American corporate culture. In the United States, diversity initiatives were shaped by a long history of racial exclusion and the Civil Rights Movement. Across India, companies imported the American progressive language of allyship, microaggressions, and inclusion without asking whether it suited the soil it landed on.
To be sure, importing ideas from outside cultures is not, by itself, a problem. But what happens when only the veneer of justice is imitated, but not its substance?
Timeless reading in a fleeting world.
