New Delhi- In a significant step towards fostering greater sensitivity and reflection within India's justice system, the Centre for Research and Planning (CRP) of the Supreme Court of India has published a comprehensive report titled "Judicial Conceptions of Caste."
Released recently, this 60-page document meticulously analyzes the Supreme Court's discourse on caste through its Constitution Bench judgments spanning from 1950 to 2025. Focused on cases involving affirmative action, personal laws, and caste-based atrocities, the report draws exclusively from decisions by benches of five or more judges to highlight the most constitutionally pivotal pronouncements.
Authored by Dr. Anurag Bhaskar, Director of the CRP; Dr. Farrah Ahmed, Professor of Law at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne; Bhimraj Muthu, a Doctoral Researcher in Law at the University of Oxford; and Shubham Kumar, Research Consultant at the CRP, the publication aims to serve as an accessible resource for judges, legal scholars, policymakers, civil society organizations, and the public. It underscores the judiciary's role in shaping not just jurisprudence but also public perceptions of equality, dignity, and inclusion in a society long scarred by caste hierarchies.
The report is divided into three major sections. The structure begins with "Judicial Discourse on the Caste System," divided into six sub-themes. Under the varna system, it quotes Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian's concurring opinion in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992), describing the Hindu Chaturvarna as a divinely ordained four-tier hierarchy: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas (twice-born), and Shudras with Panchamas (untouchables) beyond, perpetuating extreme prejudices and inequalities preserved even through pre-constitutional judicial verdicts under traditional Hindu law.
On the caste-occupation nexus, Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy's lead opinion in the same case elaborates that caste is an involuntary, hereditary occupational grouping where endogamy and low-status vocations trap communities in a poverty cycle, persisting even in urban migration or abroad sojourns, as evidenced by marriage patterns among professionals. Justice Pandian reinforces this, questioning whether caste discrimination has truly been eradicated despite Article 17, affirming its link to social backwardness.
Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan in Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India (2008) terms this nexus an "unbreakable bondage," condemning backward classes to identification by traditional roles regardless of actual pursuits.
Delving into purity and pollution, Justice D.A. Desai's concurrence in K.C. Vasanth Kumar v. State of Karnataka (1985) invokes anthropologist Louis Dumont to argue that these ideas underpin hierarchy, separation, commensality restrictions, endogamy, and hereditary labor, though economic factors are eroding them. Chief Justice Balakrishnan distinguishes caste from class as a ritual-purity ranked, autonomous unit rooted in ancestry and religious rites.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud's 2018 concurrence in Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala declares such notions antithetical to constitutional dignity, extending Article 17 to all exclusionary practices based on them. Contrasting these, the report critiques discourses on caste's "benign origins," as in Justice P.N. Gajendragadkar's M.R. Balaji v. State of Mysore (1963) opinion, which posits an initial functional-occupational basis later rigidified by ritual purity, fostering superiority-inferiority divides. Justice Kuldip Singh's Indra Sawhney dissent laments the Chaturvarna's distortion into a societal "cancer," sacralized by Brahmins, while Justice Arijit Pasayat in Ashoka Kumar Thakur notes its elasticity hardening into heredity.
On caste as an autonomous group, the Principal, Guntur Medical College v. Y. Mohan Rao (1976) portrays castes as self-governing entities deciding admissions and expulsions, echoing colonial views of internal customs but overlooking coercive endogamy. Finally, on caste across religions, Justice Gajendragadkar in Balaji cautions against caste as the sole backwardness test for non-Hindus like Muslims or Christians.
Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy in Vasanth Kumar documents its penetration into sects, citing Christian Harijans or Muslim Pinjaras treated as Hindu castes. Justice Kuldip Singh confines it to Hindu orthodoxy via Rig Veda and Manu, but Justice Pandian in Indra Sawhney details occupational sects among Muslims and Christians carrying caste labels post-conversion, varying in rigor by region. Chief Justice Balakrishnan in Ashoka Kumar Thakur asserts caste's cradle-to-grave dominance, even in death rites.
Shifting to "Judicial Discourse on Oppressed Caste People," the report examines analogies with animals and handicaps. Justice K. Subba Rao's Devadasan (1964) dissent uses a horse race metaphor, elite versus ordinary to justify reservations as handicaps for a fair start, while Justice Jeevan Reddy in Indra Sawhney deems them "crutches" unsuitable for lifelong use, risking despondency among open competitors.
The report critiques these as dignity-eroding, conflating exclusion with disability and ignoring social barriers, advocating terms like "structural inequality." On efficiency and merit, Justice H.R. Khanna's Thomas (1976) dissent warns reservations could "whittle down" equality and efficiency, with Chief Justice A.N. Ray prioritizing administrative capability.
Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer recounts social fears of "harijan welfare" halting governance. Yet, Justice S.H. Kapadia in M. Nagaraj (2006) views merit as context-specific per Amartya Sen, and Justice Jeevan Reddy affirms innate merit in backward classes needing opportunity. Justice Chandrachud in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024) repudiates the quota-merit binary, noting stereotypes against reserved candidates.
Acknowledgements of oppression's impacts include Justice Krishna Iyer's Thomas concurrence on cultural suppression crippling Scheduled Castes' personalities amid squalor, and Justice Chandrachud's 2018 note on Article 17's unfulfilled promise, with Dalits facing endless atrocities for defying norms like growing moustaches or riding horses—issues of survival and dignity unmet despite laws like the SC/ST Atrocities Act.
The report cites Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy's powerful statement that Dalits and backward classes "need aid; they need facility; they need launching; they need propulsion. Their needs are their demands. The demands are matters of right and not of philanthropy."
The report notes that judicial discourse has often framed the entry of Scheduled Castes into public institutions as a risk to "merit" and "efficiency." In the M.R. Balaji case (1963), the Court stated that reservation would inevitably lead to a "lowering of standards." In the State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas (1976), Justice H.R. Khanna warned that reservations would be "the obvious casualties" to the "ideals of supremacy of merit [and] the efficiency of services."
The report argues that this language legitimizes an epistemology that reads historical backwardness as inherent incompetence, thereby reinforcing the very hierarchies the Constitution seeks to dismantle.
However, a shift is visible in later judgments. In the Indra Sawhney case, Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy asserted, "It is undeniable that nature has endowed merit upon members of the backward classes just as much as it has upon members of other classes; what is required is merely an opportunity to prove it."
The third major section, 'Judicial Discourse on Remedying Caste-Based Injustice,' examines the Court's views on solutions like education, reservations, poverty alleviation, and socio-economic development. The report highlights that some judgments have presented education as a panacea for eradicating caste. In the Ashoka Kumar Thakur case (2008), Justice Dalveer Bhandari remarked, "The first place where caste can be eradicated is the classroom... if you belong to a lower caste but are well qualified, hardly anyone would care about your caste." The report critiques this as an idealistic but inadequate understanding, ignoring overwhelming evidence of persistent caste bias within educational institutions themselves.
The judiciary's stance on reservations has also evolved, the report finds. Early judgments like State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (1951) and T. Devadasan (1964) framed reservations as a form of discrimination against the "meritorious" and a threat to administrative efficiency. However, later verdicts, such as N.M. Thomas (1976) and Indra Sawhney (1992), began to view reservations as instruments of constitutional repair and a means of broadening power-sharing.
A significant finding is the Court's occasional conflation of caste-based backwardness with poverty. In M.R. Balaji (1963), the Court opined that social backwardness is "ultimately and primarily due to poverty." Similarly, in K.C. Vasanth Kumar (1985), Justice D.A. Desai argued that the "only criterion which can be realistically devised is the one of economic backwardness." The report states that these claims are sociologically untenable, as they ignore how caste identity and discrimination persist independently of economic status, regulating social life through endogamy, stigma, and exclusion.
Justice Chinnappa Reddy counters with caste-economic mutuality; Justice Pandian links social-educational to economic backwardness. Social-economic development in Vasanth Kumar calls reservations insufficient without all-round uplift. Private sector responsibility in Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil (2021) urges CSR to counter exclusion, broadening beyond education to hiring biases.
The report demonstrates that the judiciary's discourse on caste has not been monolithic or static but has contained significant shifts and varied approaches. It suggests that future judicial language on caste must be more context-sensitive, historically informed, and aligned with constitutional values.
A deliberate and reflective approach will enable the judiciary to develop a more nuanced understanding of caste, recognize structural disadvantage without resorting to deficit-based descriptors, and affirm the agency and dignity of oppressed communities. By adopting language that affirms dignity, recognizes structural injustice, and supports inclusive development, the Court can further strengthen the Constitution's transformative project and contribute to a more just and equal society.
Rooted in a 2022 University of Melbourne anti-racism grant and endorsed by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, the CRP's effort, building on handbooks against gender stereotypes and ableism, insists this is sensitization, not censure, fostering "constructive engagement" for a judiciary that doesn't just interpret the Constitution but incarnates its transformative soul.
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