The tragic death of Rohith Vemula has again brought to the forefront of public imagination the painful reality of caste discrimination in Indian society. Notwithstanding the noise generated by relentless pursuit of politics, evidence clearly indicates that the Scheduled Castes as a group do face terrible prejudice in India.

Understandably, many non-Westernised Indians would be loathe to accept the ‘atrocity literature’ churned out by Western academics/ NGOs. After all, among the most oppressed minorities in the civilised world are the African Americans and the European Romas, as evidenced by various detailed studies.

However, the hypocrisy of Western academics/media/ NGOs cannot be an excuse for Indians not to confront their own failings. The present birth-based caste system and its attendant societal discrimination is a blot on India and completely against the conceptualisation of our ancient culture. There are some who claim that the present caste system is sanctified by our ancient scriptures. Not true. B R Ambedkar, in his scholarly book ‘Who were the Shudras?’, had used Indian scriptures and texts to prove that in ancient times India had widely respected Shudra rulers as well, and the oppressive scriptural verses, justifying discrimination and a caste system based on birth, were interpolated into the texts later.

In the Bhagwad Gita, Lord Krishna clearly enunciates that He created the four varnas based on guna (attributes) and karma; birth is NOT mentioned. Rishis, or sages, were accorded the highest status in ancient India, and two of our greatest epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, were composed by Rishis who were not born Brahmins.

Valmiki was born a Shudra and Krishna Dwaipayana (also known as Ved Vyas) was born to a fisherwoman. Satyakam Jabali, believed to have composed the celebrated Jabali Upanishad, was born to an unwed Shudra mother and his father’s name was unknown. According to the Valmiki Ramayana, Jabali was an officiating priest and adviser to the Ayodhya royalty during Lord Ram’s period.

Arvind Sharma, professor of comparative religion at McGill University, states that caste rigidity and discrimination emerged in the Smriti period (from after the birth of Jesus Christ and extending up to 1200 CE) and was challenged in the medieval period by the bhakti movement led by many non-upper caste saints. At the time even powerful empires emerged that were led by Shudra rulers, for example the Kakatiyas. Then, the birth-based caste system became rigid once again around the British colonial period. It has remained so, ever since.

Scientific evidence provided by genetic research corroborates the ancient scriptural absence of a birth-based caste system. Banning of inter-marriage in pursuance of ‘caste purity’ is a fundamental marker of this birth-based caste system. Various scientific papers published in journals such as the American Journal of Human Genetics, Nature and the National Academy of Sciences Journal, have established that inter-breeding among different genetic groups in India was extremely common for thousands of years until it stopped around 0 CE to 400 CE (intriguingly, this is in sync with the period when Sharma says caste discrimination arose for the first time in recorded history).

The inference is obvious. The present birth-based caste system – a distorted merger of jati (one’s birth-community) and varna (one’s nature based on guna and karma) – emerged roughly between 1,600 to 2,000 years ago. It did not exist earlier. Note that the word ‘caste’ itself is a Portuguese creation, derived from the Portuguese/Spanish ‘casta’ meaning breed or race.

The founding fathers of the Indian republic were, thankfully, aware of the pernicious effects of the birth-based caste system on Indian society. The Indian Constitution had bold objectives. But, as is obvious today, while government policies such as reservations have made a difference, they have not been good enough.

The work of Dalit scholar Chandra Bhan Prasad shows that the post-1991 economic reforms programme has seminally addressed this issue. According to the 2006-07 All-India MSME Census, approximately 14% of the total enterprises in the country are owned by SC/ST entrepreneurs, and they generate nearly 8 million jobs! The figure is probably much higher today.

There are many who claim that the reservations policy has ignored the upper caste poor and rural landless. This may hold some truth. But this is also largely due to the absence of enough education facilities and jobs, which leads to rationing of the few opportunities that do exist.

Post-1991 reforms have no doubt brought down these shortfalls, but they have not gone far enough. Many argue that reformist policies will not just help the Dalits, but also the rural and urban upper-caste poor.

So, as Prasad has pointed out repeatedly, more economic reforms and urbanisation will go much further in mitigating caste discrimination and poverty in general, compared to government policies. However, caste discrimination must be opposed and fought against by all Indians, for the sake of the soul of our nation.

Annihilating the birth-based caste system is a battle we must all engage in at a societal level. We will honour our ancient culture with this fight. More importantly, we will end something that is just plain wrong.

The writer is a best-selling author