India's caste quota controversy
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tinkering with the reservation system nothing more than a bid to grab votes in the general election?
India has long had a system of positive discrimination to enable people from lower castes to get political representation, government jobs and university places. But as Rahul Tandon reports, the Prime Minister's decision to broaden the quotas to include anyone from an economically deprived background, irrespective of caste, has proved divisive among voters.
Ed Butler speaks to Ashwini Deshpande, economics professor at Ashoka University, who claims that Modi's move won't even help the underprivileged group it purports to. Plus former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, gives his considered opinion of the successes and failures of five years of economic policy under Modi.
(Picture: An Indian voter queues to cast her vote; Credit: Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Today, India's decades-old system of affirmative action over caste prejudice. And why some say the Prime Minister tinkers with that at his peril. |
| 0:15.8 | Reservation should be given to the deprived caste. This is a dangerous move by the Modi government and this is against the spirit of the constitution. |
| 0:23.0 | We explain what's happened |
| 0:24.3 | and ahead of elections we hear from a former central banker |
| 0:27.3 | about what still needs to change in India. |
| 0:30.4 | India needs a second generation of reforms |
| 0:33.5 | which liberates growth. |
| 0:35.7 | You have to build the roads, build the ports, |
| 0:37.8 | build the networks that allow people to reach markets. |
| 0:42.4 | India in the spotlight in business tailing from the BBC. |
| 0:48.6 | The frankly elaborate timetable of voting in the world's largest democracy is coming to a climax. There are |
| 0:56.0 | seven rounds of elections in India altogether. Two more to go this month. Final results |
| 1:01.6 | expected in a couple of weeks. And in a bid to shore up his government's support, the Prime Minister |
| 1:06.8 | Narendra Modi has introduced a key change in the country's decades-old reservation system. |
| 1:12.6 | Reservations is the Indian word for affirmative action or positive discrimination, you might say, |
| 1:18.0 | aimed at promoting citizens from lower caste backgrounds and guaranteeing them access to seats in various legislatures, |
| 1:26.0 | to government jobs, to higher education. |
| 1:28.5 | The BBC's Rahul Tandon now reports on all of this. |
| 1:32.3 | I'm on a busy street in the Indian capital Delhi. Lots of conversations taking place around me, |
| 1:38.9 | many of them about caste. What is it? It's the hierarchical structure that has been part of this country for generations. |
| 1:48.0 | At the top, you have the Brahmins or the priests at the bottom those without caste, the so-called |
| 1:53.6 | untouchables. I've come to meet Professor Amit Torat, an expert on caste. |
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