India’s media elite remains overwhelmingly upper-caste with no Dalit representation.

Evidence

In 2006, the CSDS did a survey on the social profile of New Delhi’s media elite. Of the 315 key decision-makers surveyed from thirty-seven Delhi-based Hindi and English publications and television channels, almost 90 per cent of the decision-makers in the English language print media and 79 per cent in television were found to be ‘upper caste’. Of them, 49 per cent were Brahmins. Not one of the 315 was a Dalit or an Adivasi; only 4 per cent belonged to castes designated as Shudra, and 3 per cent were Muslim (who make up 13.4 per cent of the population). — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 68

Categorization

• SEED: Data point for an article on how caste exclusion persists in elite professions decades after being formally abolished, paralleling media/tech demography in other countries.
• XREF: Reinforces the Ambedkar point in para 67 that caste control of media is a structural continuity in India, not a fleeting historical situation.