Is caste disappearing in urban India? Illustrate your answer with examples.
15 marks · answer in 250 words · directive: Illustrate
The core of a good answer
Caste is weakening in urban India as a rule of occupation, ritual purity and daily interaction, but it persists in marriage, housing, networks, caste-linked sanitation work and discrimination in institutions, so it is changing form rather than disappearing.
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What the question asks
The question asks for a reasoned position backed by examples. Show the forces that dilute caste in cities, then the evidence of persistence and new forms, and arrive at a nuanced answer: transformation, not disappearance.
Answer outline
Introduction
It was widely expected that urbanisation, industrial work and education would dissolve caste; urban India shows a more complex pattern in which caste loosens in public life but survives in private and institutional spaces.
Signs of weakening
- It has long been argued that the anonymity of cities, mixed workplaces and public transport weaken rules of commensality and touch.
- Inter-caste marriage is more common among urban, educated and economically advanced groups.
- Constitutional and legal guarantees: Article 15, Article 17 abolishing untouchability, the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, and the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
- Reservations in education and public jobs provide routes of mobility for Scheduled Castes.
Signs of persistence
- Marriage: a majority of marriages in India are still endogamous, and a Pew survey (2019 to 2020) found opposition to inter-caste marriage widespread.
- Sanitation work: 332 sanitation workers died in sewer and septic tank cleaning in 18 States and UTs between January 2021 and June 2026 (NCSK data, Lok Sabha reply, 21 July 2026).
- Institutions: the Supreme Court in Sukanya Shantha v Union of India (3 October 2024) struck down prison manual rules that assigned work and barracks by caste.
New forms of caste in cities
- Caste associations, networks and political mobilisation.
- Caste as an identity for claims to welfare and representation; the Union Cabinet decided on 30 April 2025 to include caste enumeration in the next Census.
Conclusion
Caste in urban India is being reshaped, not erased: it is less visible in public interaction but remains embedded in marriage, work and institutions, so legal protection, education and active anti-discrimination measures are still needed.
Examples and data to cite
- Sukanya Shantha v Union of India, 2024 INSC 753, decided 3 October 2024 by CJI D. Y. Chandrachud and Justices J. B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.
- Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decision of 30 April 2025 to include caste enumeration in the upcoming Census.
- NCSK data: 332 sewer and septic tank cleaning deaths in 18 States and UTs, January 2021 to June 2026.
- Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
Facts to remember
- Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form.
- Article 15(2) bars discrimination in access to shops, public places, wells and tanks.
- Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955; SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
- The Sukanya Shantha judgment held caste-based division of labour and segregation in prisons violative of Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23.
Where it sits in the syllabus
- GS1: Indian society and diversity
Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.
- GS1: Women, population, poverty, urbanisation
Role of women and women's organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.