Is not the market meant to break down the traditional hierarchies?
It is and eventually they will be broken. But the market is not an ideal solvent of social differences when it reinforces and amplifies the initial differences. Those who have already intellectual and economic capitals can make it fructify. Can economic liberalisation lead to a political explosion? The increasing inequalities and the disparities in wealth may create tensions. The rural/urban divide is one case in point but you have also disparities between the south and the west on the one hand and the Bimaru states on the other. Do you think a middle class among the backward castes is emerging as a result of liberalisation? For the moment, the Dalit middle class is more a product of the reservation policy. But the corporate sector may find it advisable to pursue the the kind of diversity-oriented policies that American companies do.
