“At least 250 million people worldwide still face appalling and dehumanizing discrimination based on caste and similar systems of inherited status.” Caste is a system of inherited social hierarchy that rigidly defines people’s status, occupation, and dignity from birth. Caste discrimination is the systemic exclusion, stigma, and violence directed at those deemed “lower” in this hierarchy—manifested through restrictions on labor, marriage, education, and public life and upheld by social norms and religious authority. To be born “untouchable,” or at the lowest rung of these caste systems, is to inherit a life already written for you. Across the world, in places as different as India, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Yemen, and Nigeria, entire communities inherit exclusion through blood. These systems may differ in name and origin, but they operate with strikingly similar logic—a ritualized, intergenerational rejection rooted in ideas of purity, labor, and lineage. Whereas the state often resists class systems, caste systems have historically been protected, politicized, or quietly ignored by those in power.
Caste-like hierarchies share patterns of assigning marginalized groups the most stigmatized labor in society—often involving death, waste, or blood—and justifying this position through religious or moral frameworks. In India, Dalits, the “untouchables,” have long been confined to manual scavenging, leatherwork, and street cleaning tasks. These are not just seen as degrading jobs but as spiritually contaminating ones. In Japan, the Buraku (“pollution abundant” or “unclean”) were historically relegated to leatherworking, butchery, and execution—professions considered ritually defiling. Though legally abolished in 1871, the Buraku continue to face discrimination in the form of verbal abuse, violence, and even segregation in Japan’s rural areas. South Korea’s Baekjeong community experiences similar treatment: Identified by their involvement in butchery and animal slaughter, they remain stigmatized even today, particularly in conservative rural areas where marriage proposals can still fall apart over family lineage. The same story rings true for the Ragyabpa group of Tibet, restricted to “impure” professions such as executions, butchering, and skinning, as well as the Muhamasheen of Yemen—literally “the marginalized ones”—who have historically been restricted to garbage collection and sanitation work and are still denied access to political decision-making and basic civil protections. Within Nigeria, the marginalization of the Osu (“owned” by deities) remains unchecked. Mostly landless, the Osu can traditionally only marry within their caste and are still buried in separate cemeteries.
What links these examples together is not only historical exclusion but also the way these exclusions survive legal reform. Although many of these states have abolished formal caste structures—India formally abolished untouchability in 1950 and Japan in 1871, Nigeria’s Osu system was outlawed in 1956 and 1963, and Yemen stipulated “fair national policies and procedures to ensure marginalized persons’ access to decent housing, basic public services, free health care, and job opportunities” after the 2011 uprising—caste continues to evolve. In India, Dalit students still face informal segregation in schools. A nine-year-old Dalit boy died after a teacher assaulted him in his school in Rajasthan for allegedly touching a pot of drinking water reserved for the “higher castes.” The Buraku of Japan suffer from low levels of higher education and have above-average drop-out rates. Even in extenuating circumstances like civil conflict, caste seems to trump humanity. Since 2015, in the absence of access to tribal or informal networks of patronage and amidst the humanitarian crisis, the Muhamasheen in Yemen have struggled to access basic services and support mechanisms, where community members faced discrimination and, in some cases, were denied access to aid.
This persistence is not incidental. Marginalized communities are often denied full social or economic inclusion but are courted politically. They become vote banks: vital during elections and forgotten afterward. In India, for example, parties often campaign on Dalit welfare, yet caste-based violence continues at alarming rates, with over 51,000 cases filed under offenses of atrocities against members of scheduled caste communities in 2022. This example of selective inclusion reveals a broader political strategy of representation without redistribution and presence without power. Token appointments of marginalized leaders do little to challenge the deeper machinery of exclusion, which remains invisible but operative and, at times, convenient for those in power. In fact, Dalits who contest for political office in seats “reserved” for them find themselves physically assaulted or threatened in an attempt to get them to withdraw from the campaign.
Yet resistance continues. Ambedkarite movements and groups like the Bhim Army organize on-the-ground protests and advocacy in India. The Buraku Liberation Movement continues to pressure the government and industry to address discrimination in Japan. In Korea, younger citizens are increasingly vocal about ancestral prejudice. Local organizers and activists have also leveraged global platforms in Yemen to raise awareness of Muhamasheen exclusion. However, cultural resistance alone cannot end caste, nor can legal reform if it is superficial or poorly enforced. What is needed is a dual transformation of social consciousness and institutional design.
There are imperfect yet helpful models attempting to dismantle caste-based exclusion through legal and institutional reform. In India, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act criminalizes violence and discrimination against Dalits and Adivasis, while affirmative action policies, known as ‘reservations,’ allocate seats in universities, government jobs, and legislatures to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. While these policies have enabled the rise of a Dalit middle class and increased political representation, they remain deeply contested and unevenly enforced. Access does not always translate into dignity, and beneficiaries often face social backlash, stigma, or tokenism. Still, these policies represent one of the most extensive state-led efforts to redress historical injustices based on caste. In Japan, the government has implemented Dōwa policy initiatives since the 1960s to improve living standards in Burakumin communities, investing in education, housing, and employment opportunities. However, critics argue that these efforts have not fully dismantled the informal networks of exclusion that persist in private-sector hiring and marriage practices.
Caste discrimination is not an ancient relic; it is a modern system that adapts, mutates, and survives by embedding itself into the cracks of both law and culture. Even when constitutions have outlawed it and institutions have reformed around it, caste’s more profound social logic remains intact. Across the world, we have seen governments implement affirmative action, pass anti-discrimination laws, and dismantle caste-based legal categories. However, these efforts—while critical—cannot succeed alone. Caste persists not only because institutions fail to eliminate it but also because too many societies still quietly believe in it.
To truly dismantle caste, we need more than policy. We need a collective refusal to accept inherited hierarchy as natural or justified. We need institutional reform, yes, but also a social reckoning: a will to unlearn prejudice, to rewrite the stories we tell about purity and labor, and to build cultures that do not fear equity.