Un petit repos

Having been hard at work for several days now, and several more to come, Mari & I sat down to watch the first few minutes of "Ghandi" this evening. The cast system in India was referenced early in the movie, and Mari mentioned an article he'd seen earlier today relating to this issue. I have heard that this system is still in use today, even with all the progress the country has been making in recent years. However, this article shows that, even if incomplete, real progress has been made.

Indiana University
Economist applauds decline of Indian caste system
Born an ‘untouchable,’ Narendra Jadhav earned degree at IU in ’80s

By Steve Hinnefeldshinnefeld@heraldt.com
June 27, 2007
From: http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/06/27/news.qp-8077134.sto?1182990424

India’s caste system was a “brilliantly administered scam” that allowed a small group to hoard society’s benefits at the expense of others for 3,500 years, Indian economist Narendra Jadhav said.

But the system is falling apart as India becomes a modern, democratic society, said Jadhav, who received a doctorate in economics from Indiana University in 1986. It’s no coincidence that India is becoming a global economic power as the social barriers of caste lose their power, he said.

“Today, the confidence of the rest of the world in India’s future is completely unprecedented,” he said. “And I don’t remember the Indian people ever being more confident in themselves than they are today.”

Jadhav speaks about caste from experience. He was born into the lowest caste, known as Dalits, or untouchables. His account of his family’s struggle to overcome the system has been been translated into French, German, Korean and Spanish and inspired a Hindi-language TV series.

First printed in the 1990s in his native Marathi language, the book was expanded and republished in English by Simon & Schuster in 2005 as “Untouchables: My Family’s Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India.”

Jadhav is vice chancellor of the University of Pune in Maharashtra, India. He heads the department of economic analysis and policy at the Reserve Bank of India and advised the executive director of the International Monetary Fund from 1998 to 2002.

He visited Bloomington this week for the first time since receiving his degree 21 years ago. The first thing he did, he said, was to telephone his wife from outside the tiny IU apartment where they lived with their infant son when Jadhav was a graduate student.

“This is the university that gave me the basic grounding to be a professional and also a good human being,” he said. “I owe so much to this university.”

Jadhav also met Tuesday with Michael McRobbie, the Indiana University president-elect, to discuss establishing partnerships between IU and the University of Pune. “We have made a very solid beginning,” he said.

In a session with reporters, Jadhav talked about how his family’s saga has struck a chord with people in different countries and cultures. “It’s a matter of great happiness,” he said.

Jadhav’s parents, as untouchables, were denied education and limited to jobs that involved the most difficult and demeaning physical labor. But with Indian independence and the efforts of Dalit activists such as B.R. Ambedkar, cracks started developing in the rigid caste system.

Jadhav said his father objected to the system, stood up to authority and urged his children to pursue education and overcome social obstacles. His daughter, born in Indiana while Jadhav taught at Depauw University in Greencastle, refuses to acknowledge even the psychological limits of the caste system.

“She is completely liberated,” he said. “She is a global citizen, and she feels that nothing can stop her.”

Jadhav said the system kept India from reaching its potential as a nation. Prior to its emergence as a global economic power in the past 15 years, he said, India had gone through 2,000 years of decline. While some Indians blamed colonialism, he said, “nonsense,” because England ruled India for just 150 years.

“What is the reason” for the decline? “The reason is the caste system,” he said.

Ghandi's legacy should live in each of us.