It took only six and a half months to dismantle the social conditioning of 3,000 years. Last October, Professor S. Sadagopan took 89 students from India’s lowest castes – those once known as the Untouchables – and began an experiment designed to catapult them into the business elite.

He enrolled them on a special training course at his technical college in Bangalore, India’s IT capital, to prepare them for careers at some of the world’s top companies. They were each given laptops and internet access. They learnt communication, leadership and team-building skills. They were even taught table manners.

Twenty-six weeks later the results spoke for themselves: of the 89 students, 80 were hired by companies including Infosys, Wipro, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. “We wanted to give them something they couldn’t get otherwise – to get them out of their shells and make them confident,” said Professor Sadagopan, director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bangalore. “We taught them fishing, instead of giving them fish.”

The experiment is India’s latest attempt to tackle the Hindu caste system, which was abolished after the country won independence 60 years ago on Wednesday, but still dominates many aspects of Indian life.

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BACKGROUND

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The project’s apparent success demonstrates how India’s new economy can break down social barriers where the Government has largely failed. But it also illustrates the complexity of the caste system and the political sensitivities surrounding schemes designed to correct the injustices of the past.

The project is the brainchild of Infosys, the Bangalore-based software company that is the flagship of new India. “There is a layer of 200 million people who have benefited from the last 60 years in India,” said Mohandas Pai, Infosys’s human resources chief. “We need to demonstrate our commitment to help the others.”

India already has the world’s largest affirmative action scheme, which reserves 27 per cent of government jobs and university places for lower castes and disadvantaged groups. Now the Government is considering extending that scheme to the private sector.

Business leaders, however, fear that the move will simply replicate problems in the state sector, where quotas are filled with little regard for talent and cause deep resentment among other employees. So Infosys came up with its experiment as an alternative model that it hopes can be replicated throughout the private sector.

The results, so far, look impressive. Ramesh, one of the 89 in the experiment, was born into a poor family in the agricultural region of Balla.

A member of the Banajar caste, one of the lowest, his father owns no land and earns 600 rupees (£7) a month working for local farmers or on the nearby tea estates. Thanks to the quota system Ramesh received an education and graduated from a local college last year with a degree in computer science. But like many lower-caste graduates, without the connections or social skills, he struggled to find a job in the IT sector.

Then he answered an advertisement for Professor Sadagopan’s experiment. Today Ramesh works for Bally Technologies, a Las-Vegas based gaming company in Bangalore. He earns 20,000 rupees a month – 33 times his father’s salary – and says that colleagues treat him as an equal. “My family is so happy,” he said. “Finally we have reached some destination.” But there is a flaw.

While all the trainees were from lower castes, many were from relatively well-off families, who had already broken into the middle class thanks to the education quotas. Pushpa, for example, is the daughter of a retired banker from Hubli, Karnataka’s second biggest city, who was the first in his family to get an education.

Before joining the course she earned 8,000 rupees as a lecturer. Now she earns 18,000 at Wipro. Although she is lower caste, most of her friends are from higher ones.

“I’m not from a poor background,” she said. “This course has boosted my confidence, but it has nothing to do with caste.” She and other trainees said that caste still dominated village life, but was less relevant in cities, where status depends more on money.

Some critics accuse Infosys of making token gestures to try and escape caste quotas, which could cost it millions. Professor Sadagopan’s students propose a simple solution: means-test the next batch of trainees. “This course should be expanded but it should only help poor people,” said Ramesh. “Otherwise the well-off will always be going up and the poor will always be going down.”

Caste system

— There are four main castes: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (traders) and Shudras (farmers and artisans)

— There are at least 3,000 other castes and about 25,000 sub-castes

— The lowest are known as untouchables or “Dalits” and were traditionally forced to do the most menial jobs

— There are about 165 million Dalits in India, 15 per cent of population

— In 2003 the Government said that 676,000 of them were still clearing human faeces for a living

— A 2005 government report states that a crime was committed against a Dalit every 20 minutes

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