This is because the higher castes are wealthier! Wow.
With what I know about the Indian education system, it is impossible to make it into the best schools without a great deal of personal wealth.
With what I know about the Indian education system, it is impossible to make it into the best schools without a great deal of personal wealth.
you are mistaken. The best Universities are almost free - subsidized by the government. (However in high schools, those that are English speaking Western schools do require wealth). Only brains counts. The IIT Math entrance exam is said to be the toughest in the world (google for past qs papers).
When you have a society where bribing is the norm (nothing is possible without a bribe basically, and even then its not guaranteed), the people with wealth are obviously going to be the ones to benefit most and stay on top. No matter how intelligent, if you don't have the money for the bribes, you can't get anywhere.
It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.
It's just a fact that people with more wealth have better socioeconomic opportunity than people with less wealth, not that they're more intelligent. This means better schools and better education.
Further, there is actually reservation for poor people from lower castes (25 - 50% of the seats). So it's not the same thing. I don't disagree with ingenium that better socio-economic opportunities help richer people do better, but the discrimination against lower caste people is not systemic in higher education.
Your small town analogy doesn't work. A better analogy is if you went to a poor inner city public school, then you can't get into Harvard. This is basically true, since you don't receive a good enough education to get the scores to get in. Also, if your family is poor, especially in India, you have to work to support your family and self rather than focus on your school work, which leads to lower grades and test scores.
Yes K to 12 level education needs money but University admissions do not depend at all on what school you attended, only on your score in the Std 12 exam held by the state or an entrance exam. Further there are 25 - 50% reservations for poor people from lower castes in most Universities. So yes bribing is a big problem and so is casteism but one place where the problem is close to non existent is higher education.