Richa Chadha illustrates how pervasive caste system in India is with matrimonial ad in newspaper

Richa Chadha took the example of a matrimonial advertisement in an English newspaper to illustrate how deeply the caste system has penetrated the Indian society.

Chadha shared an image of the page where almost every ad specified that they were looking for a prospective groom or bride from a particular community. While some ads wrote that they wanted someone who was “fair”, and “homely" or an “innocent divorcee”.

The actor noted that most of the ads were from cities. The notion that caste does not exist is common only when it does not affect a person directly, she explained.

Here is her tweet

Twitter users came out in support of Chadha with one saying that people do not realise the caste privilege . Another pointed out how matrimonial ads had religious divisions as well to which Chadha replied the system is not exclusive to the Hindu religion.

Some users pointed out that the newspaper used by Richa was a decade old. Many users refuted the logic by sharing more recent papers that had similar ads.

Richa also shared a report by VICE News from August, 2020, where Dalit Indians working at US Tech companies had admitted to trying to hide their identities in order to evade any caste-based discrimination.

Here is the tweet thread

Recently, actor Kangana Ranaut said that “modern Indians” have rejected the caste system and she believed reservation denies opportunities to a lot of “deserving” candidates. She equated reservation with nepotism — a practice common in the Hindi film industry — which led to the “undeserving” getting jobs.

This was in response to a tweet shared by a news outlet, which said that Oprah Winfrey had sent by Pulitzer Award-winning African-American writer Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents to almost 100 American CEOs and 400 leaders in the US.

Here is Ranaut’s response

Cast system has been rejected by modern Indians, in small towns every one knows it’s not acceptable anymore by law and order its nothing more than a sadistic pleasure for few, only our constitution is holding on to it in terms of reservations, Let Go Of It, Lets Talk About It 🙏

— Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) August 23, 2020