But the Bishnoi, a caste of farmers in Rajasthan, cover their dead in salt and bury them in an unmarked trench.
Theirs was the backlash of a paternalist establishment to a mutiny by a member of a caste dog-tired of paternalism--a caste to which protection had been promised in exchange for quiescence, but which, at long last, had tired of this quiescence.
It can lead to hatred, a sour caste of mind that spoils anything good that comes your way.
However, now heading a coalition government, Congress needs the support of smaller parties, including a number of caste-based groups that have sprung up in recent years, to push through important legislation.
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Make no mistake: What's in play is the emergence of a caste-based traffic system, one of robot-haves and have-nots, of steely-eyed electronic wheelmen vs.
Each case has a similar algorithm of caste and controversy in a region where old wounds appear to have yet to heal.
Such friendships are fleeting: on a whim a party leader can shift the votes of a caste grouping from one alliance to another.
OBCs - a collection of caste groups lower down in the hierarchy - accounted for 3.8% of the directors.
When poverty is considered hopeless, America is condemned to permanent social division, becoming a nation of caste and class, divided by fences and gates and guards.
This usually means that one of the two national parties (Congress or BJP) cobbles together a coalition with the help of a motley crew of regional chieftains and caste-based outfits.
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Then a group of low-caste Hindus in a village near Kanchipuram threatened to convert to Islam after they were prevented from worshipping in a nearby Hindu temple.
Caste-rights groups, in fact, say that some violence against women is a backlash against a modern blurring of caste lines.
But individual investors of all wealth levels need to accept that there is a caste system in the world of investments that excludes them.
Seemingly trivial, such trends in fact describe a rapid weakening of caste identity, says Mr Prasad.
When it comes to fighting for power in Bihar, the Yadavs (the name also applies to a caste) are enemies of the upper castes.
He created the cash economy-a cornerstone of capitalism-with a brilliant insight: Money is the enemy of caste and stagnation.
Most critics have praised this saga of Phoolan Devi and her lone battle with the oppressive Indian caste system as a brave piece of cinema.
Maybe the real story ought to be how a product of Manhattan wealth and privilege turned on his own caste, attacking the corrupt financial elite with a zeal not seen since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, and then was punished for his class treachery (just before his crusade was 100 percent vindicated by recent history).
The researchers say there could be a host of reasons - caste discrimination itself (members of other castes refuse to work with the lowest castes), lack of knowledge, illiteracy, and problems with securing finance.
She was a member of the higher-caste Jaat community and from the same village, Mehrana, near the border with Haryana state.
Like any priestly caste, Eurocrats display a streak of authoritarianism and obscurantism.
These are the Dhobis, a Hindu caste, born into the job of doing laundry.
Many candidates seek votes through beggar-thy-neighbour appeals to the self-interest of a particular linguistic, caste or religious group.
As his last name denotes, Yadav is a member of the dairymen's caste.
In this election Miss Jayalalitha's lot is expected to benefit from the votes of Vanniyars, a poor caste prominent in northern Tamil Nadu whose leader deserted the national alliance shortly before the election.
The caste origins of India's billionaires are on predictable lines: 28 of the 46 billionaires come from traditional merchant classes ( Banias, Parsis and Sindhis, for example), and a number of them belong to upper caste communities like Brahmins and Khatris.
Gypsy-gadje relations are made even trickier where traditional groups still observe laws shaped by a sense of imminent defilement, the idea (more understandable when framed within an Indian caste system) that contact with gadje, particularly sexual contact, is a kind of pollution punishable by banishment.
Growing up in Maryland, just south of the Mason Dixon Line, I often let my wanderlust and imagination drift up the coast to a more perfect place of beautiful coastline, living history and a cultural patina that seemed a caste above my mid-Atlantic surroundings.
In Congress's renewed popularity with Muslim and low-caste voters some saw intimations of a revival for it even in Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state, from which the party had been all but ejected.
ECONOMIST: Congress is poised to return to power, but not just yet
Perhaps most hopeful of all, the first studies of the results show signs of a shift away from identity politics, in which voters lump together by caste or religion to back one of their own.
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