Opinion Kavin Selva Ganesh’s murder shows why the ‘creamy layer’ is not protected from caste violence

This reality stands in sharp contrast to the assumptions embedded in parts of the Supreme Court’s landmark August 1, 2024 judgment, which allowed state governments to create sub-quotas within Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe reservation. While the verdict itself addressed only the permissibility of such sub-classification, two judges, Justice Gavai and Justice Mithal, went further, expressing opinions on issues which were not in purview of the case presented in front of the court. The Judges endorsed the application of the “creamy layer” principle to SC and ST social groups. Justice Gavai suggested excluding “wealthier” and “more advanced” members of these groups from reservation benefits, citing children of IAS officers as an example. In his view, such individuals could not be considered “handicapped in the race of life.” Notably, as of August 12, the SC has also agreed to examine a petition seeking income-based distribution of reservation benefits within the quota for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) so that the poorest among them get preference.

On paper, the logic put forth by Justice Gavai appears tidy: If reservation has helped you or your parents achieve upward mobility, you no longer need it. But Kavin’s killing shows how dangerously this assumption misreads India’s social reality. Caste stigma does not dissolve in the presence of a bank balance; it does not vanish when a Dalit man walks into an IT office or lives in an urban apartment. In fact, research suggests the opposite, as the economic gap between SC/STs and upper castes narrows, violent crimes against the former often increase. Visibility can provoke backlash.

We have seen this before. In Rajasthan in 2022, the wedding procession of Dalit IPS officer Sunil Kumar Dhanwanta had to be taken out under police protection, because his family feared violent confrontation from dominant caste villagers. The message is clear: No matter how many exams one clears, promotions one earns, or assets one acquires, the caste hierarchy remains ready to police the boundaries of intimacy, visibility and assertiveness.

Even if overt hostility were to vanish overnight, the generational disadvantages created by centuries of exclusion cannot be erased in one or two generations of reservation. As Suraj Yengde observes in Caste Matters, an emerging Dalit middle-class family may enjoy some protection from overt discrimination, but remains structurally disadvantaged in ways that are often covert, harder to identify, and harder to fight. As aptly reminded by Sukhdeo Thorat, Ambedkar saw reservation and legal safeguards as tools for securing a fair share for the oppressed in the present, but still insufficient to undo the consequences of the historic denial of property, education, and employment. Evidence from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) shows that Dalits experience far higher rates of downward mobility than forward castes, even when starting from professional-class backgrounds (Ideas for India, 2017). Weakening protective measures on the belief that caste disadvantage evaporates with income risks reversing fragile gains.

The idea that India is somehow “post-caste” collapses under basic scrutiny. Ninety-five percent of Indians still marry within their caste (IHDS 2012). In the job market, discrimination persists even for the qualified. A famous 2007 study by Thorat and Attewell sent fictitious CVs with identical qualifications to employers, changing only the names to signal caste identity. The Dalit-named applicants received 33 per cent fewer interview callbacks than their upper-caste counterparts. These are not the patterns of a society where caste has lost its grip. The persistence of caste bias continues to be reflected in recent evidence from other domains. In higher education, nearly 80 per cent of OBC and 83 per cent of ST faculty posts in central universities remain vacant, with many qualified candidates rejected as “Not Found Suitable.” If caste-based bias can block Dalits and Adivasis from staff rooms and office cubicles, it is no surprise that caste can also stalk a man in the street, even if he is a well-paid software engineer.

Reservation was, of course, never designed to prevent murder. It is not a personal security guarantee. But it remains the strongest armour against the structural vulnerabilities that make Dalits easy targets. It provides steady protection by enabling access to stable jobs, political representation, and social visibility. Taking it away on the assumption that caste disappears with economic comfort is not just naïve; it is dangerous. Removing that armour will not make caste vanish. It will only leave people more exposed to its violence.

Of course, time and again we are reminded that in a casteist society like India, no amount of upward mobility can ever be enough protection. Kavin Selva Ganesh’s murder is not just a personal tragedy; it is a case study in the limits of economic advancement as a shield against caste. When caste can kill a man who “made it”, who had education, a secure job, and the opportunities that reservation is meant to create, then the argument that such people no longer “need” this protection rings hollow. Reservation cannot protect against the knife, but it remains one of the few tools we have to blunt the system that gives it its edge.

The writer is a research scholar at Centre for Development Studies