‘IT sector is not immune to caste bias’

A recent survey finds few employees from backward castes or poor families in the industry

PC Vinoj Kumar
Chennai


Has the Indian information technology (IT) industry become the preserve of upper castes? Sociologists who have studied the socio-economic profile of the industry’s workforce believe so. A study conducted by Carol Upadhya and AR Vasavi of the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, states that the IT “workforce is less heterogeneous than is commonly assumed, and that the large majority of IT professionals come from middle class, educated, urban backgrounds, and from the upper castes.” Of the 132 software engineers who were interviewed, 71 percent belonged to the upper castes. About half were Brahmins. Eighty-four percent of the respondents were from middle class families, while only 5 percent hailed from rural areas.

Other studies have arrived at similar conclusions. “Oomen and Meenakshisundararajan (2005), in their survey of 100 software professionals in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram, found that 12 percent were from rural areas. Three-fourths of their respondents were found to be from forward castes and the rest from backward castes. None were from the sc/st categories,” points out the NIAS report. However, the report concedes, “Like our sample, most of their respondents worked in the major IT companies such as tcs and Wipro, so the sample is biased towards the ‘cream’ of the IT workforce.” The report further states, “Fuller and Narasimhan’s (2006) smaller study of software professionals in Chennai also found that they come overwhelmingly from Brahmin or forward caste, middle class, urban backgrounds.”

The NIAS study found the socio-economic profile of bpo employees similar to that of those from the IT industry. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents were from metros, and 36 percent from tier two towns such as Mysore and Coimbatore. Thirty-two percent were Brahmins and 23 percent belonged to other upper castes. An earlier study done by Babu P. Ramesh of the VV Giri National Labour Institute, Noida, found that 96 percent of the 277 respondents from the bpo industry belonged to the forward castes.

In 2000, M. Vijayabaskar, a labour economist, conducted a study for the International Labour Organisation and interviewed 160 software engineers in Bangalore and Delhi. The study found that 80 percent of the respondents belonged to forward castes. Vijayabaskar, an assistant professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, argues that the scenario in the IT industry justifies the demand for reservations for other backward castes and dalits in central educational institutions like the IITs. “Leading IT companies recruit from top-notch engineering colleges like the IITs and the regional engineering colleges (REC),” he says.

IT companies conduct campus interviews in select colleges all over the country. They compete for talent from the top 50 colleges in the country. “The rankings of the top 50 colleges are more or less the same for all the companies, which means that they are competing for a limited pool of well-qualified engineering graduates. Campuses may be graded into three tiers: Tier one or a+ institutions include the IITs, iims, the Indian Institute of Science, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and a few others. Tier two or a level institutions include the National Institutes of Technology (formerly RECs), and the top state campuses such as the Delhi College of Engineering and the Punjab Engineering College,” says the NIAS study. The recruitment process is tailor-made for people with a certain socio-economic profile. ‘Networking’ is a common practice in the industry. ‘Employee referrals’ are a popular form of recruitment. According to the study, “Many companies get about 25-30 percent of their new hires through employee referrals, although one mnc claimed that half of their people come through this route.” There is a flipside to IT. Says the study, “As in other fields of social life, social networks not only facilitate cooperation and exchange of information, they may also produce closure and exclusivity and strengthen the monopoly of members over social and economic resources.”

Candidates from rural backgrounds are at a great disadvantage because of the stress laid on communication skills, fluency in English, and ‘soft skills’ during recruitment. “There are several aspects of the recruitment process followed by it companies that tend to privilege students from English-speaking, educated, urban and middle class families.” According to the study, the companies insist on “a consistent average of 70-75 percent marks from the tenth standard onwards.” The study argues that this yardstick puts those from “poor, lower caste, and rural backgrounds” at a disadvantage. Another mechanism of exclusion are the group and human resources (HR) interviews that assess spoken English, communication and social skills, confidence and personality — elements of ‘cultural capital’ that students from urban middle class families are likely to possess and those from non-metropolitan and lower caste backgrounds might lack, says the study.

However, the study grants a reprieve to the IT industry by stating: “Of course, it is not the IT industry alone that tends to exclude lower caste and rural candidates, nor is this done deliberately; rather, this is a problem with private sector employment in general, which is why the question of reservations in the private sector is being sharply debated.”

IT companies were evasive when asked to comment on the findings of the studies regarding the socio-economic profile of its workforce. Padmini Sharath Kumar, Polaris’ vice-president, corporate communication, said, “We don’t ever capture any information on caste in any of our HR processes. So, we would not have any data in this regard as far as Polaris is concerned.” Vivek Punekar, HCL’s vice-president, HR, said, “HCL is an equal opportunities employer. Our recruitment policy and procedures strongly prevent any discrimination. We do not maintain any data on caste distribution, simply because we have not felt the need to differentiate people.” Infosys failed to respond.

The IT industry’s stand has few takers. Bangalore-based activist VT Rajshekar, author of Development Redefined, a book that argues for “caste as basic unit of planning”, says the IT industry would only benefit a few. “The IT industry has no use for the common people of the country. Three things are essential for an IT professional — knowledge of English, a telephone and a computer. How many people in this country have them? Fifteen percent have telephones, less than 2 percent know English, and still less people own computers.”

The NIAS report sums up the situation and suggests what needs to be done: “The IT industry insists that it must be left free to recruit only the best workers if it is to maintain its competitive edge in the global market, and for this reason it has consistently opposed the idea of job reservations in the private sector. However, some companies and industry spokespersons have acknowledged that the private sector must bear some responsibility for social justice and for creating greater opportunities for a wider section of the population, and the idea of evolving a voluntary affirmative action programme has found favour in some quarters. But barring only one or two, till date most companies have not taken substantial steps in this direction. This is a central issue for debate and policy formulation, either by the State or as a voluntary initiative by the industry.”

Jan 20 , 2007