There Is An Elephant In The Room - And The Blind Men Of Indostan Can't See It

By closing our eyes to the most underprivileged quartile of our population, the Dalits and Tribals, are we depriving ourselves of a major opportunity to expand our potential pool of talent and laying ourselves open to the threat of crude legislative action that will hamstring India’s private sector for decades?

- Visit Banaji

The topic was 'Diversity and Inclusiveness in Indian Business and Industry'. The panel included highly respected CHROs, brilliant academics and even a consultant from the Big Four. Their expositions were informative, scintillating, and useful. There was only one problem. Not once during the discussion or the succeeding Q&A (until I got my turn to ask) was there even a glancing reference to inclusivity for Dalits and Tribals, those most deprived sections of our society who go by the constitutionally bestowed appellation of SC/ST. It was as if industry in India (at least the private sector part of it) had entered into a conspiracy of silence to avoid talking about the huge elephant in the room.

As Karen Joy Fowler wrote, however, "When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time-to-time bound to trip over a trunk".1 By closing our eyes to the most underprivileged quartile of our population, not only are we depriving ourselves of a major opportunity to expand our potential pool of talent but laying ourselves open to the threat of crude legislative action that will hamstring India’s private sector for decades.

Firing on All Cylinders

In this column, I will not enter the seismically sensitive zone created by some dominant castes muscling into the benefits initially intended for SC/STs, nor will I will step into the minefield that traces the origin and history of caste formation within India. I will limit myself to pointing out some commonsensical consequences of having such divisions in society.