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Onderstaand artikel is gepubliceerd door/published by: BBC News, 5-2-2007

Kastensysteem barrière voor vooruitgang?

Tweederde van alle Indiërs vind het belangrijk dat het land een economische supermacht wordt, maar 55% ziet het kastensysteem als een barrière voor vooruitgang. Dat blijkt uit een opinieonderzoek van de BBC. Het betrof een representatieve steekproef van 1.616 Indiërs die in december 2006 over diverse onderwerpen werden ondervraagd.
Uit de steekproef blijkt verder dat Indiërs vaak in twee goeddeels gelijke delen verdeeld zijn als het om andere belangrijke sociale thema’s gaat . Zo vindt ruim de helft dat het Indiase rechtssysteem rijk en arm eerlijk behandeld, hetgeen een verrassing is gezien het veelvuldig falen van politie en rechtbanken. Bijna de helft van de Indiërs vindt corruptie een ‘fact of life’ bij het zakendoen. Jongere mensen zijn overigens minder tolerant voor corruptie dan ouderen. Tenslotte denkt de helft van de mensen dat hun eigen gezin de afgelopen jaar baat heeft gehad bij de economische groei. De andere helft zegt daarvan niet te hebben geprofiteerd.


Caste clouds India's high hopes


Indians want to see their country punch its weight around the world - but are worried the caste system is holding it back, a BBC poll suggests.

Almost two-thirds of respondents in the World Service poll said India being an economic superpower was important.

But 55% thought caste issues were still a "barrier to social harmony".

Visitors to BBC websites chose questions for the survey. A nationally representative sample of 1,616 Indians was interviewed in December.

The poll found that a majority (71%) are proud to be an Indian.

Most also thought it was important that India should be a political (60%) and military (60%) superpower.

A majority were optimistic about many aspects of the modern Indian state - more than half (55%) think the Indian justice system treats rich and poor people fairly, a statistic which some may find surprising given perceived failures in the police and courts.

Nearly as many (52%) think being a woman is no barrier to success any more.

And the survey found that twice as many people (48%) would rather work for a private company than for the government (22%).

But on other topics respondents were less positive.

Forty-seven percent agreed that "corruption is a fact of life which we should accept as the price of doing business in today's world", although younger people were less tolerant of corruption than older people.

And if Indians are agreed on the need for India to be an economic superpower, they are less sure they are seeing the fruits of recent economic growth.

Asked whether India's economic growth over the past 10 years had benefited them and their families directly, exactly the same proportion (45%) said that it had, as disagreed.

One in two (50%) felt that "people in India don't take their religion seriously enough", while two in five (40%) believed that "young people have lost touch with their heritage and traditions".

In total 1,616 citizens in India were interviewed between 5-15 December 2006.

Polling was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan and its research partner in India. The margin of error is +/-2.5.


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Landelijke India Werkgroep - February 14, 2007