The overview

I. Casteism
Your caste is your ‘birthright’. Depending on your caste, you are entitled to a certain quantity and quality of economic, social, and cultural capital ^[1].In that sense, you are either doomed to a life of discrimination or blessed with a life of privilege simply based on the family you are born into. For thousands of years, the caste system has placed such a great burden on the people of India. More specifically, it has adversely affected the lower castes due to the discrimination that comes hand in hand with such a system. Despite the constitutional ban on such discrimination in 1948 ^[2], the system still prevails in rural India like an unremovable splinter. This has undoubtedly led to gaps in the level of education and the distribution of wealth, both major causes of disharmony among the castes. Click here to see how the indigenous people, who make up more than 30% of the Indian population, are being oppressed after being pushed to the bottom of society. Here is another piece of evidence in the form of videos.

II. Poor education
An abundance of children in India were robbed of attaining a proper education due to a set of backward cultural beliefs held by the majority of Indian educators ^[3], which you can read about here. Such poor education may be at fault for the various injustices suffered by the Indian people. Health issues, environmental ignorance ^[4][5], basic human rights unawareness, domestic abuse ^[6], psychological problems ^[7], and poverty can all be linked back to the ultimate culprit: improper education.

III. Water scarcity
Agriculture, a practice which heavily relies upon water expenditure, is the fundamental source of income for more than 70% of the Tamil population ^[8]. However, due to the unpredictable and fruitless nature of water-bearing monsoons in the geographically disadvantaged state, the Tamil people have to look elsewhere for water sources ^[2]. Thus, they turn to natural tanks and groundwater sources, like rivers. Still, as a direct result of interstate political disputes, the Tamil people are granted minimal access to these water sources, too ^[9][10][11].

Such severe water scarcity within the state remains the primary impediment to the production of agricultural yield, which acts as a source of food for the population, as well as to the generation of income.

This directly affects other sectors within the state such as education, housing, transport, and social welfare.

IV. Poverty
An abundance of the Tamil people lack the necessary expertise to enter the more profitable skilled workforce as a result of the outdated educational system of India.

On the other hand, those who do have the appropriate skills and proficiencies for that workforce tend to settle for jobs that are below their skill set mainly due to a shortage of job opportunities. Thus, ‘underemployed’ would be the right term to describe the employment status of the majority of the state ^[12]. Moreover, it is clear that such circumstances lead to serious poverty across the country.

Another pressing issue with underemployment is the increase of economic migration. Skilled workers prefer to take their skills elsewhere, and this can result in complexities like uneven economic growth and wealth distribution in Tamil Nadu ^{[13][14 a]}.

It is important to note, however, that while male workers have such liberties to search for greener pastures, the women face troubles like parental/communal restrictions, general career disinterest ^{[14 b,c]}, and sexual abuse in workplaces ^{[14 d]}, which discourages them from ever dreaming of an independent life.

It goes without saying that the marginalized, low-caste population is comprised of the poorest people of the country ^[15][16][17]. Despite governmental socio – economic measures aimed at equalizing all castes, there remains an unevenness in the distribution of wealth ^[18]. For instance, the top 10% of high-caste people still own 60% of the country’s wealth ^{[19 a,b]}.