Asia News

Browse corporate India's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) sections, and you’ll notice a glaring omission: “caste.” While terms like “gender,” “sexuality,” “physical ability,” and “race” dominate public-facing pages, caste—a system affecting hundreds of millions of Indians—barely gets a mention. Occasionally, it appears in downloadable documents such as codes of conduct, but it is often absent. “It’s not surprising—most Indian companies shy away from discussing caste,” says Christina Dhanuja, a DEI-caste strategist based in Chennai. Caste, an ancient social hierarchy rooted in Hinduism, remains a sensitive topic, as addressing it involves confronting the privileges of upper castes and the historical implications of the country’s dominant religion.