Caste escaped global censure because it fused with admired images of Hinduism

Evidence

Other contemporary abominations like apartheid, racism, sexism, economic imperialism and religious fundamentalism have been politically and intellectually challenged at international forums. How is it that the practice of caste in India—one of the most brutal modes of hierarchical social organisation that human society has known—has managed to escape similar scrutiny and censure? Perhaps because it has come to be so fused with Hinduism, and by extension with so much that is seen to be kind and good—mysticism, spiritualism, non-violence, tolerance, vegetarianism, Gandhi, yoga, backpackers, the Beatles—that, at least to outsiders, it seems impossible to pry it loose and try to understand it. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 40

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in moral panics and how powerful systems rhetorically shield themselves — the ‘complaints about immodesty’ essay’s mechanism of ideology masking structure.
• QUESTION: Why did apartheid draw global condemnation while caste did not? The fusion-with-religion answer raises further questions about the international politics of naming an abuse ‘religious’ versus ‘political’.
• SEED: Angle: the marketing of Hindu culture (yoga, backpackers, Beatles) as soft-power branding that launders caste — parallels could extend to other sanitized cultural exports.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 40