Changes in Caste System

There have been tremendous changes made to Indian?s society with regards to providing a more just system for the Dalits. Great leaders have paved the way to help the Untouchables.

In 1967, Dr. Ambedkar, a Dalit, led a mass conversion to Buddhism, partly on the assumption that Buddhism had an anti-cast movement. He also wrote the constitution that outlawed untouchability and sanctioned positive discrimination programs for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes.

Mahatma Ghandi, a Vaishya, broke cast traditions by taking in an untouchable child. He started the name Harijan, meaning "Children of God" for the Untouchable caste. He also "persuaded the Indian National Congress to adopt a resolution in support of Harijan uplift, and published a magazine called Harijan, which was devoted to the welfare of the Untouchables." He helped lead India's independce and in doing so, unified India's social hierachy. (Web Source)

Today, more and more Dalits are getting educated and employed. In the academic arena, scholarships have helped increase their literacy rate increase "from 10.3% in 1961 to 21.4% in 1981." (Web Source)
This improvement has in turn, led to the emergence of educated Dalits holding higher positioned jobs, even white-collar jobs.

Along with urbanization, caste affiliations are no longer obvious and the observance of purity-pollution regulations is negligible. It is no longer an issue to take the public transport together or to be in the same meeting room. With so many people in such urban public places, it is very easy to forget the rigid, purity-pollution rules.
However, despite the decline in purity-pollution rules, there is still the observance of caste as can be witnessed in caste associations that still organize activities in quest of building numbers and thus influential power in society. Match-made marriages and activities are still present, proving another evidence of caste consciousness in today's time.

Still, it would be too general a statement to assume that all purity-pollution consciousness has melted away. In the rural outskirts, it is safe to say that there are still low-caste workers facing discrimination. In the mid-1990s, about 90% of the Dalit population live in rural areas where an increasing proportion - more than 50% - work as landless agricultural laborers. (Web Source: U.S. Library of Congress Country Study, ) Evasive tactics by high-caste landowners have managed to avoid government regulations that try to secure more even distribution of land. Modernization also posses competition as now, in addition to the minimal pay and benefits, workers have to compete against tractors and other machines for their jobs.