In the United States, inequality tends to be framed as an issue of either class, race, or both. Consider, for example, criticism that Republicans’ new tax plan is a weapon of “class warfare,” or accusations that the recent U.S. government shutdown was racist.
As an India-born novelist and scholar who teaches in the United States, I have come to see America’s stratified society through a different lens: caste.
Many Americans would be appalled to think that anything like caste could exist in a country allegedly founded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. After all, India’s atrocious caste system determines social status by birth, compels marriage within a community and restricts job opportunity.
[For more on this story by SUBRAMANIAN SHANKAR, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...caste-system/551591/]
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