UPSC Mains 2026 GS1 Q18: model answer

Ambedkar urged Dalits to move to cities, hoping anonymity and modern work would loosen caste. Seventy-five years later, the urban picture is mixed.

Where caste is weakening

• Shared public spaces: metros, offices, restaurants, where purity rules are hard to apply.
• Occupations no longer tied to birth; jobs in IT and services go by skill.
• Rising inter-caste marriages among educated urban youth, though still a small share.
• Reservation has created an urban Dalit and OBC middle class.

Where it persists

• Marriage: matrimonial sites still filter by caste; most marriages stay within caste (IHDS surveys).
• Housing: landlords ask surnames; studies of Delhi and Bengaluru rentals show discrimination.
• Work: manual scavenging and sanitation work remain overwhelmingly Dalit; sewer deaths continue.
• Campuses: the deaths of Rohith Vemula (2016) and Payal Tadvi (2019) exposed bias; the Supreme Court has asked UGC to strengthen anti-discrimination rules.
• Corporate world: a 2023 caste-bias case in a US tech firm shows it travels abroad.

Changed forms

• Caste associations act as networks for jobs and votes.
• Caste identity is asserted politically by marginalised groups.

Caste is not disappearing; it is becoming less visible and more private. Laws, reservation and economic mobility have weakened its rituals but not its hold on marriage, housing and dignity of labour.