‘Lol even poor Brahmin discriminates poor Dalit’: intersections of class mobility and caste immobility in negotiating support for caste-based reservations in India.

In this paper, we examine how economic inequality is considered in intersection with one specific form of structural inequity: caste in India. In India, economic inequality is distributed along caste groups, to address which reservations, a form of affirmative action policy, were designed and implemented. We examine how intersections of caste and class-based inequities are constructed as valid or not in criticizing or defending reservations. We undertake a discursive analysis of discussions on the digital media platform Quora focusing on those instances where caste-based reservations were the subject of discussion. Findings show a pervasive qualified, but not outright, rejection of reservations. Instead, posters ascribed features suggestive of class to ‘lower’ caste groups to indicate relative economic privilege in questioning the use of reservations. These were defended by references to routine and pervasive casteism. However, the viability of some form of economic progress for oppressed caste groups meant that principles of meritocracy and egalitarianism could be used to treat reservations as unfair. These findings are discussed in relation to current qualitative psychological research on economic inequality and the cultural salience of intersecting inequities.