I had a dream that with education expanding to all sections of the society, the old system will die its natural death. Youngsters will demolish the barriers created by the caste system. There will be free inter-caste marriages. People will stop identifying themselves by the caste. There will be no complexes or hatred against the persons of other castes. There will be no reservations by at 2050, if not earlier. But a study of IT sector that comprises of educated class has morosed me. It appears it will take perhaps a century or more or it shall never come in this country. It appeared in ‘Outlook’.

The first-ever sociological study of the IT industry in India, conducted by the School of Social Sciences of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, debunks some of these myths

MYTH: IT industry has unleashed a ‘network society’ and a ‘second modernity’.

FACT Indian IT workers seem to have preserved the conservative institution of endogamous marriage. As per the sample survey, South Indian Brahmins married South Indian Brahmins, while for North Indian Brahmins in-marriage was 100 per cent. Only one Brahmin in the sample was married to a non-Brahmin. For Vaishyas, endogamy was 100 per cent, as was the case for dominant agricultural castes and all other categories. All the Muslims and Christians also married within their communities. Of those surveyed, 62 per cent had arranged marriages, 28 per cent were self-arranged, while a small number were arranged through marriage bureaus, Internet chat and the like. Intra-regional marriage statistics is another factor supporting the conservative attitude of IT employees to marriage-among Hindi-speaking respondents, 88 per cent married those who speak Hindi. A similar pattern is found among Tamil speakers (88 per cent), Kannada speakers (83 per cent), Malayalam speakers (75 per cent) and Telugu speakers (71 per cent).

Perhaps, my perception of the younger generation was based on very few cases of young men with open mind that I met.

What do you think about it?