Indian Caste System

We're studying the Indian caste system in World History. The first day we played a game where each person in a small group has a title taped to their forehead. The group interacts with each other based on that title while filling out a paper, and the goal is to figure out which social status you hold based on how people treat you. At first it was a point of humor, because I knew I was an Untouchable (the lowest caste), so I was chasing my group members around the room and touching them so they'd be "unclean." It was great fun; this was a messed up system but it hadn't been put into practice for years and years. India is a civilized country, after all.

But the next day we watched a video from the early 2000s about an interview with a landowner who employed Untouchables. They were payed in scraps of food (not money) to clean animal and human excrement from dirt floors with straw brooms. They didn't have any shoes, so their bare feet were caked in it. That was bad enough, but the land owner treated them like they were less than human! When asked which he would grieve more for, an animal or one of his workers, he answered the animal because it gave him something in return. And in fact, when asked point blank if he considered Untouchables to be humans, he avoided the question and said only, "they are a different caste," as if that was even an answer.

How does this still happen? How the hell does this still exist in the 21st century? The Indian society claims to have risen above caste prejudice; they even have (can't remember the word I'm looking for- rules? laws?) against it in the Indian Constitution. My Dad went to India a few years back for a business trip. His employers put him and his coworkers in a swanky hotel., but the lot just beside the hotel was filled with homeless families living under tarps. As foreigners Dad's group was largely shielded from the caste and wealth disparities, but it was still visible.

I dunno. This whole thing pisses me off. I know there's inequality in the world. I know that it'll never be entirely gone. But the Indian Caste system condemns you from birth. You can never rise above the station you were born to. You have no chance to better your life or your children's' lives. No hope. I'm not ok with that.