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Structural violence is known to be insidious, happening subtly and indirectly, to entire classes or groups of people. As James Gillian (1983) argued, the more marginalized people are, the greater their rate of death and disability -- not because of intrinsic differences between the socio-economic strata from which they hail -- but because of differences in their life experiences and treatment. The nexus at which status inequalities are accepted and embedded in a society is culture. The term cultural violence refers to the legitimizing process that occurs when structural violence is viewed as normative by a society. The Indian caste system is a most exact example of cultural violence.

Social conflict perspective. Structural violence -- the forces that created and sustain the caste system in India -- is a phenomenon made manifest through social inequalities (Christie, 1997). The organizational structures of political and economic systems -- in fact, of every system within which marginalized people come in contact -- cause and sustain the sort of hierarchical relations that enable dramatic differences between and across sectors of societies. Within these hierarchies -- which are dramatically present in Indian castes -- the people at the top have privilege, wealth, and power, while those at the bottom of the hierarchy are dominated, oppressed, and exploited (Christie, 1997). People are harmed and killed as a result of structural violence but, unlike direct violence, it is subtle, occurring more slowly and more pervasively. However, we are shown in the video, the ease with which structural violence is coupled with direct violence.

Structural violence has historical, psychological, sociological, and economic roots. When there is enduring belief in the immutable nature, or historical rightness, of differential treatment of people, very real struggles can and do occur between the classes in a society. A sense of psychological rightness, which is typically based on individual perspectives of superiority or inferiority, can make structural violence difficult to identify. Certainly, economic and sociological forces condition the environment in which cultural conflict or structural violence thrives. Inequalities in supply and demand result in economic struggles for survival -- the reality is that there are not enough of the basic commodities for all members of a society, so some people will be deliberately and systematically cut off (Christie,