A section from the journey

Caste in the Present

We have followed varna and jati across the whole journey. Now we tell the present honestly. In 1950 India's Constitution abolished untouchability by law, and reform has come a long way. Yet unfair treatment by birth has not fully vanished. Today the question has even reached other countries, where new caste-discrimination laws are fiercely argued. We set out reform, reality, and the law, with every side named, and take no side ourselves.

Through this whole journey, one hard thread has run alongside the bright ones. We have met , the old fourfold ordering of society, and , the many birth-communities that grew within it. We have never hidden the suffering that came when birth was made a cage. Now we must speak of where this stands today.

The great fact of the modern age is reform meeting law. We have already honoured the reformers, across many generations, who fought to break the cruelty of , the treating of some people as impure by birth. Their long struggle bore fruit in the highest place it could.

When India became a republic, its Constitution, in force from the year 1950, abolished untouchability outright. In plain words, it declared the practice forbidden and made it an offence punishable by law. This was a turning of the age, the dream of the reformers written into the law of the land.

The new republic did one more thing. It set aside places in schools, colleges, and government posts for communities that had long been shut out. After centuries of a barred door, the door might now open. Thoughtful people debate this policy. We describe it simply as what it is, a policy, neither to be praised nor attacked here.

But honesty has two halves, and here is the second. A law can forbid a thing without instantly erasing it from every heart. Studies and reports find that unfair treatment by birth has not wholly vanished from daily life. We say this plainly, while also noting that the surveys and how they are read are themselves argued over. The reform is real and large. It is also not yet complete.

And now something new. In our own time, this old question has crossed the seas, carried by the to new lands. In other countries, people have begun to ask whether the law should name caste as a thing to protect against. And there, the argument has grown sharp. Here, more than ever, your guide must step to the and only name the voices.

A few real events mark the debate, and we tell them flatly, as facts. In 2020, a case in California accused a technology company of caste bias against a worker. In 2023, the city of Seattle voted to add caste to its anti-bias law. It was the first United States city to do so. Also in 2023, California's lawmakers passed a bill to ban caste bias. The governor then vetoed it, saying existing law already covered such cases.

Around these events, two honest camps stand and disagree, and we name both with respect. We do not weigh them. We only let you hear each one clearly, and then we leave the scales in your own hands, where they belong.

The rishi steps to the Threshold — where accounts differHow should caste in the present be understood — what does evidence show about lingering discrimination, how are the diaspora caste-law debates argued, and how does the tradition view its own reform?

What scholars and the record show

Scholars and reports describe a real but uneven picture. Constitutionally, untouchability was abolished in 1950 and affirmative-action reservations were created for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and other backward classes; both are described neutrally as policy. Surveys and studies record that birth-based discrimination persists in some areas of life, though the data and its framing are themselves contested. The diaspora debate is genuinely two-sided and each side is attributed. Supporters of explicit caste-discrimination law, such as Equality Labs and various Ambedkarite and civil-rights groups, argue that caste bias exists abroad and needs named protection, citing cases like the 2020 California action against Cisco and the 2023 Seattle ordinance. Opponents, such as the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America, argue that a caste-specific law unfairly singles out and risks stereotyping a community already facing prejudice, and that intra-community issues should be addressed without religiously coded categories; they note the 2023 California bill was vetoed on the ground that existing law already protects against such discrimination. Scholars also dispute the methodology of key surveys. The honest conclusion is that this is an active, unresolved legal and political matter.

As the tradition reforms itself

From within, the tradition carries a long and living current of self-reform against caste injustice. Its own scriptures hold counter-voices: the Upanishads honour the truth-telling boy Satyakama and the wise cart-man Raikva regardless of birth, and the Gita teaches that the four orders were meant by quality and work, not by mere descent. The bhakti saints sang that before God all devotees are equal, several of them from the most excluded communities. In the modern age, reformers such as the Phules, Vidyasagar, and many others, and countless temple-entry and equality movements, pressed the tradition toward its own higher ideals, and that work continues among teachers and communities today. In this self-understanding, the abuse of caste is a human failure to be corrected, not the heart of the faith; the tradition holds that it is both the place where the wound was carried and a powerful source of its own healing. This view is offered respectfully, beside the scholarly record, not in place of it.

Through all of this, hold the tradition's own deep counter-current in mind. From within, voice after voice has risen against caste injustice. Ancient sages taught that worth is not birth. The great reformers fought it. Teachers fight it now. The tradition is not only the wound. It is also, and powerfully, its own healer. We carry both truths together, without flinching from either.

It is easy to judge a whole people by their worst inheritance, and easy too to pretend an old wound has fully closed. The truer path holds both the harm and the healing at once. Where in your own world do you see a community still working, honestly and unfinished, to mend something old?