The “Wealthy Dalit” Myth

In this modern Indian society, where people sit as a set of opinions and thought processes in a café over coffee, distressed about the wrecked system, where there is division on every level and stage of life. One of the major divisions in society is based on caste. There is a consolatory myth that people belonging to the dominant castes of India like to tell themselves that caste is a rural ghost, a reminder of a backward past that has been banished by the dual power of urbanisation and economic emancipation. We are told that only merit is currency and the only colour is capital. But, for millions of Indians, this story is not only untrue but also a form of gaslighting of their reality. Casteism is not dying out; it is evolving. It has moved from a system of overt avoidance to a sophisticated system of social exclusion. This is the shadow of birth, a phenomenon in which one's caste identity follows them, no matter what their bank balance, education, or professional achievements are. To combat this inequality, the reservation based on caste has to be asserted as a necessary instrument for institutional equity.

Caste is not a social class. While class is fluid, a low-income person can become rich and move into the upper class, but caste is a closed system; you are born into it, and you die into it. Caste is a hereditary, endogamous, and hierarchical system of social stratification. It is determined by birth and is a “closed” system where social mobility is theoretical and often practically impossible.

Money is not a shield. There is a huge misconception that modernisation automatically dissolves casteism. Sociologists call it the “Modernity of Traditions”. Society disorients caste-based reservation as a poverty alleviation scheme. Reservations were designed to ensure that marginalised groups have a seat at the table where decisions are made. It is a representation policy to ensure that groups who were historically and currently shut out of society get a level playing field. A person from a dominant caste belonging to a economical weaker section can escape poverty and cut loose the associated stigma, but a person from a marginalised or backward caste, regardless of wealth, cannot escape their lineage in the eyes of a casteist society. Caste is a systemic obstacle. Caste discrimination follows an individual from birth to death. Wealth can be a cushion, but it is not a shield from stigma. Professional or economic success does not buy the tag of social “purity”. A financially well-off person from a marginalised caste still faces the psychological tax of being viewed as “less than”.

High-ranking officials face discrimination in instances when their subordinates refuse to drink water from the same dispenser or when their offices are “purified” when they vacate. Professionals are mocked by colleagues who link their success solely to “quotas”. House-helps who belong to a marginalised group are given different utensils to eat and are made sit on floors to make them feel that they are not equal just because they are born in a particular caste, which they believe is lower than them.

Equity v. Equality

The difference between equity and equality can be understood by the race analogy. It counters the argument that “everyone should be treated the same” by highlighting that people do not begin their lives at the same starting line. The difference between equity and equality can be understood with a race analogy. It challenges the idea that “everyone should be treated the same” by observing that everyone does not start in the same place in life.

Imagine a 100-meter race. The finish line is the same for everyone, the distance is the same, and the starting gun goes off for everyone at the same time. It seems like a purely meritocratic situation, but the race analogy encourages us to consider where each person begins. The privileged person gets to start at the 0-meter mark, with good shoes on their feet, a personal trainer who provides expert advice, and the benefit of having been well-fed and well-rested. The marginalised person is 50 meters back from the start line, running barefoot, carrying a heavy backpack of historical debt, and having spent the last three days doing manual labour instead of training.

Applying equality to this race means you simply shoot the gun and watch the favoured runner cross the finish line every time. The crowd gathered at the finish line might say the winner had more talent or put in more effort, when in fact the difference is a 50-meter head start. Equity, on the other hand, acknowledges this gap and seeks a fair and equitable adjustment to the playing field: move the marginalised runner forward, give them the resources they need to close the gap, shoes, training, and support. When the marginalised runner finally reaches the 80-meter mark, carrying a heavy burden, it is a triumph that is a far more objective measure of merit than the favoured runner crossing the finish line with ease. It's not simply a matter of money. An Economic Gap is like having a runner who doesn't have shoes. You can buy them shoes, and that problem goes away. A Caste Gap is like having the referee tie the runner's shoelaces together or trip them on purpose. Even if that runner becomes rich, the other runners and officials are still working to prevent them from winning.

Recent UGC Controversy

The recent controversy regarding the UGC Promotion of Equity Regulations, which is currently stayed by the Supreme Court of India, further highlights the friction and struggle for institutional social justice. Judicial stay has created a hostile accountability vacuum. While the regulations aimed to punish institutions for caste-based bullying, as seen in the tragedies of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, they faced immediate legal challenges from groups arguing that protecting only marginalised castes is “discriminatory” against the general category. This “hierarchy of victimhood” argument ignores the reality that institutional power is skewed in favour of dominant castes. The Equity Guidelines mandated Anti-discriminatory cells, strict timelines and punitive measures. It states that every university must have a dedicated office to handle complaints of caste-based slurs, social boycotting, or academic victimisation. Mandatory resolution of caste-related grievances within 30 days. And withholding of grants for universities that fail to implement safety protocols for SC/ST/OBC students. Reservation should not be viewed as a “gift” to the marginalised groups, but as a “correction” for a broken system. It was never about making anyone rich, but a democracy representative. Until a person's last name no longer determines their social standing and is no longer used as a tool for exclusion, caste-based reservation remains the only path truly equitable in India because caste is a graded inequality. No matter how much a modern capital (wealth) one acquires, they cannot easily shed their social capital, which is caste.

The Constitutional Mandate

The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India has clarified the nature of reservation on multiple occasions. The court has repeatedly addressed the matters of reservation based on caste and casteism. In the case of Indra Sawhney v. UOI (1992), the court explicitly stated that the backward class of citizens in Article 16(4) of the Indian Constitution is not the same as the economically backward. The court recognised caste as a primary indicator of backwardness in India. A common misconception is that reservation is an exception to the right to equality. In the case of State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas (1975), the court noted that reservation is not an exception to the rule of equality, but a facet of it. One cannot have equality without first ensuring that the playing field is level. The legal support of caste-based reservation rests on the phrase “Socially and Educationally Backward”. Law recognises that social backwardness is a direct consequence of the caste system, which imposes stigma of birth, a permanent disability that cannot be cured by money alone.

The shift from a caste-based to an economically-based reservations system is not an attempt to adjust a system; it's an attempt to sidestep the lasting pain that has been encoded in our society. Poverty is something you carry in your pocket, caste is something that runs through your soul, and then it travels through the wiring of our core institutions. The idea of reservations and affirmative action is not to make a handful of folks rich; it's to change the makeup of the halls of power that we have and make them match the folks we serve. A society that values “merit” and not “privilege” that refuses to recognise it? Well, that's not meritocracy; that's an aristocracy. As long as the 'Shadow of Birth' dictates who can rent in a city, who is considered suitable to teach in its faculty, and whose life deserves dignity under the law, the task of the state remains the same. We must stop considering the right to reservations as a 'gift' that can be taken away as soon as the family crosses a certain income threshold. Rather, it should be understood that it is a corrective, life-giving measure that prevents democracy from slipping back under the dominion of a handful of people.

The Author is a Law Student at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. Views are personal