I S S U E B R I E F P O V E R T Y A N D S O C I A L E X C L U S I O N I N I N D I A Dalits Maitreyi Bordia Das and Soumya Kapoor Mehta1 have aided this process; and a history of protest move- ments has amplified the voice of Dalits. Some argue Caste is perhaps the oldest form of social stratifica- that economic growth and processes such as migration tion in India. Sanctified by religious texts and solidi- have transformed caste by providing new opportunities fied through norms of inter-marriage and inter-dining, for Dalits to move away from their traditional, ritually the caste system essentially orders different groups in impure occupations (Prasad 2008, 2009a, 2009b). But the Hindu Indian society into an occupation-based these changes come across more strongly in micro level hierarchy. The Brahmans and Kshatriyas at the top evidence and do not add up to a consistent national undertake relatively “purer” tasks (teaching and ruling picture. In national level data, the outcomes for Dalits respectively). They are followed by the Vaishyas (trad- remain poorer than those for other social groups (with ers) and at the bottom the Shudras and the erstwhile the exception of the Scheduled Tribes (STs)2). untouchables who engage in demeaning and stigma- tized occupations (scavenging or dealing in bodily While caste has had significant implications for pov- waste, for instance). In functional terms, thousands erty and other welfare outcomes, this note focuses of jatis or sub-castes are the operative units. on two arenas—education and the labor market. This is because education and occupation both had After independence, the Indian Constitution abol- ritual significance in that they were the preserve of ished untouchability and the erstwhile untouch- upper castes. Dalits were usually illiterate, landless and ables came to be known as the Scheduled Castes were meant to serve in “impure” occupations passed (SCs). A comprehensive “schedule” or list of SCs was down through generations. drawn up through the Constitution Order 1950 for purposes of targeting in development programs, com- Our analysis based on the National Sample Survey pensatory policies to amend for prior discrimination, (NSS) data suggests that there has been expansion and policies to prevent violence against untouchables. in education among Dalits, but not at the same Concomitant to these administrative classifications, pace as among the upper castes. In the two decades several sub-castes within the SC category started using after 1983, Dalit men registered a 39 percentage point a self-preferred appellation—Dalits, or the oppressed improvement in post primary attainment. But this was people. The term politically united them in a process still lower than the growth registered by non SC/ST more empowering than the identification by their men (56 percentage points). Similarly, Dalit women individual names, which were, and continue to be showed a 21 percentage point improvement in post associated with ritually impure occupations. primary attainment between 1983 and 2004–05—lower than the 38 percentage point improvement registered The situation of Dalits has undergone dramatic by their upper caste counterparts over the same period. transformation over time. Compensatory policies like Moreover, dropout rates were high. The 11th Five Year reservations in public education and employment and Plan indicates that about 74 percent of Dalit boys and protective legislation like the Scheduled Castes and 71 percent of Dalit girls dropped out of school between Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 grades 1 and 10 (Government of India 2008). 1 This brief is based on a chapter in the forthcoming volume, Poverty and Social Exclusion in India. It is not a formal publication of the World Bank. It is circulated to encourage thought and discus- 2 For the purposes of the graphs and the tables in this note, we sion, and its use and citation should take this into account. Maitreyi use the term SC/ST as these are standard administrative/survey Bordia Das is Lead Specialist in the Social Development Department categories. In the text though, we use the self-preferred terms i.e. of the Sustainable Development Network in Washington DC. Soumya Dalits and Adivasis (or tribals) interchangeably with SCs and STs Kapoor Mehta is an independent consultant in New Delhi. respectively. 2 Issue Brief: Poverty and Social Exclusion in India  |  Dalits Micro studies continue to document discrimina- Figure 1: Dalit men: Greater likelihood of Casual Labor in rural tion against SC students. Even today discrimination areas, lower likelihood of self-employment in urban areas against SC students by teachers and by upper caste parents is common in some parts of the country 0.25 0.23 ■ Rural Men (Nambissan, 2010). Dalit children are particularly ■ Urban Men Predicted probabilities from multinomial 0.20 excluded in situations involving the sharing of food 0.15 0.11 and water and prayers i.e. areas otherwise considered 0.10 “Dalit Effect” after key controls logistic regressions permeable to “pollution” by lower castes. Further, 0.05 Regular Non-farm Self-employed given a history of prejudicial treatment, there is also a Salaried self-employed Farmers –0.01 0.01 0.00 high likelihood of Dalit students internalizing a strong –0.01 –0.01 Casual Wage –0.01 Not LF expectation of failure. Experimental studies confirm –0.05 –0.04 the importance of such belief systems. For instance, –0.10 –0.10 using controlled experiments with students in a village –0.15 in Uttar Pradesh, Hoff and Pandey (2004) find that –0.20 –0.16 SC students perform poorly in schools if their caste is made salient. This suggests that there are factors Source: Das, 2006 beyond the demand and supply of education which militate against the success of Dalit students. salaried work and not many “graduate” out of casual labor in self-employment either. Compared In the labor market, Dalits remain largely in casual with about 17 percent of non SC/ST men, a little more labor. We look at labor force participation rates (in than 13 percent of SC men were regular salaried work- self-employment, in regular jobs and in casual work) ers in 2004–05. Also, not many Dalit men had moved separately for men and women in rural and urban to non-farm self-employment, as would have been areas and find that overall Dalits are slightly more expected during India’s period of rapid growth. While likely to participate in the labor force than non SC/ the proportion of Dalit men in non-farm enterprises STs. Dalit disadvantage really plays out in the kind increased slightly from 11 to 15.6 percent between of work Dalit men and women do when employed. 1983 and 2004–05, the shift was modest, at best. In Historically, Dalits have remained landless and while comparison, the proportion of non SC/ST men in the some states in India have implemented land reforms non-farm sector rose from 16.4 to 24 percent over the after independence this has not been the norm. This same period. This disparity is reflected in our multi- has meant a preponderance of Dalits in casual labor. variate analysis as well. Controlling for a number of From the NSS we find that, in 2004–05, over 41 per- household and individual characteristics and place of cent of Dalit men and 20 percent of Dalit women were residence, we find that Dalit men are 4 percent less engaged in casual labor as opposed to 19 percent of likely in rural areas and 10 percent less likely in urban non SC/ST men and 8 percent of non SC/ST women. areas to be self-employed in the non-farm sector than Moreover, the decline from 1983 had been miniscule, non SC/ST men (see figure 1). when about 44 percent of SC men and 27 percent of SC women had been employed as casual labor. What makes for such few Dalit entrepreneurs? Micro studies across India suggest that Dalits are still slotted What about salaried jobs and non-farm self-employ- into their traditional occupations, which are manually ment? Despite the fact the Dalit women’s labor force based and really a form of low level wage employment participation rates are much higher than those of (Thorat 2007). Those who do think of moving into self- their non SC/ST counterparts. But women in India employed ventures fail to do so out of fear of social are generally excluded from regular jobs and from pressure and potential loss of sub-caste networks non-farm enterprises, with only about 3 and 5 percent that serve as sources of mutual insurance (Munshi women being employed in the two types of employ- and Rosenzweig, 2005, 2006). Second, to circumvent ment respectively. Given these small proportions, there their disadvantages in building networks across social is little scope for variation and Dalit women are not groups, Dalits tend to strengthen their internal bonds significantly more disadvantaged. and use these for economic purposes. In spite of the benefits of public sector employment, Ultimately perhaps “opportunity travels along Dalit men still lag behind non SC/STs in regular the synapses of social networks”, as the American Issue Brief: Poverty and Social Exclusion in India  |  Dalits 3 economist Glenn Loury so eloquently says (Loury e.g. the education level itself. Wage inequalities may 1999). The recent India Human Development Survey also be explained by the fact that, even in the public (2010) reports that only 12 percent of Dalit households sector, Dalits are concentrated in low-end jobs. In 2006, had access to two or three contacts in the formal almost 60 percent of the sweepers in central govern- sector in 2005 compared with 26 percent among ment ministries were SCs. Das and Dutta (2008) in a forward caste households (Desai et al 2010). Dalits background paper for the Social Exclusion report call also lack access to credit, markets and raw materi- this horizontal segregation “glass walls”. And there als. This means that, even among the Dalits who are are glass ceilings as well, which make Dalit workers self-employed, a majority remain in low-end manual obtaining high-status, better paid jobs difficult. trades (e.g. street vending) that do not require much capital or raw material to start up. The few that try out Education is considered a panacea to poor labor something new are limited by their initial conditions. market outcomes and overall it has positive effects As Jodhka and Gautam in their background paper on for all men. How much does it help? We find that, Dalit entrepreneurship for the Social Exclusion report on average, returns to education seem to be lower sum up: among Dalit men than among others. In fact, educa- tion appears to disadvantage Dalit men in rural areas. “Despite several positive changes, caste continues This anomaly perhaps reflects three things: first, that to play a role in the urban economy, and for the all men with education in a rural, primarily agricultural Dalit entrepreneurs (studied) it was almost always context are penalized; second, that Dalit men feel these negative. Dalits lacked economic resources, but effects more if they have post-primary education; and even when they had economic resources, they were third, that growth of jobs in rural areas has not kept crippled by a lack of social resources” (Jodhka and pace with the increase in the supply of educated Dalit Gautam, 2008: 25). men. In urban areas, education increases the likeli- hood of participating in the labor force for all men, Wage differentials between Dalits and others are a but the effects among Dalit men are not statistically testimony to their continued disadvantage in the significant. Here, there are several studies to suggest labor market. The wage distribution among salaried discrimination, particularly in hiring by the private Dalit workers may be similar to that of general caste sector (Deshpande and Newman, 2007). workers at the bottom and middle quantiles, but differences appear at the top quantiles (figure 2). It would nevertheless be naïve to dismiss the Decompositions of the wage differential reveal that changes in caste dynamics, more so over the past 59 percent of the earnings gap may be accounted for two decades. Economic opportunities today are by discrimination i.e. differences in returns to endow- very different from those at any other time and the ments like education rather than in the endowments, expanding economic status of many Dalits in the wake of migration and increased urbanization has helped break down to an extent old caste norms, Figure 2: Salaried Work: Wage Differentials exist between and has strengthened Dalit confidence and collective Dalits and others at higher levels self-esteem. In fieldwork conducted for the Social Exclusion report, Surinder Jodhka, professor at Regular workers Casual workers Jawaharlal Nehru University, returned to two Haryana .8 .8 villages after nearly 20 years and found that by and Density of weekly wage Density of weekly wage .6 .6 large Dalit families no longer engaged in traditional caste occupations. Instead, they went out of the village .4 .4 to work and expressed dissent against the traditional caste order by refusing to work as attached laborers .2 .2 to their erstwhile patrons. As one respondent from a 0 0 backward caste in a Haryana village told Jodhka (2008, 2 4 6 8 10 12 2 4 6 8 26): “No one (backward caste) cares for anyone simply Log weekly wage Log weekly wage because he thinks he is a chaudhary (dominant caste). SC OBC SC OBC General General Chaudharies, if they are, they must be in their homes. We do not care.” Kapur et al (2010) report similar shifts Source: NSS 2004–05 in Uttar Pradesh. 4 Issue Brief: Poverty and Social Exclusion in India  |  Dalits Attendant to the economic changes, social move- Caste.” Policy Research Working Paper 3351, World ments asserting the power of Dalits have swept Bank, Washington, DC. some states and have given Dalits a sense of political Jodhka, S. 2008. “A Forgotten ‘“Revolution’”: Revisiting voice and agency. The most visible transformations Agrarian Change in Haryana.”, Paper prepared for the have been in the political arena, first with movements World Bank report Poverty and Social Exclusion in India. around Dalit identity and dignity and later with Dalit New Delhi: Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi. parties winning state elections. While Maharashtra Jodhka, S., and S. Gautam. 2008. “In Search of a Dalit and the southern states were early pioneers, by the Entrepreneur: Barriers and Supports in the Life of Self- end of the 20th century social protests had gathered Employed Scheduled Castes.” Paper prepared for the strength in the Hindi belt as well. These movements World Bank report Poverty and Social Exclusion in India. along with electoral wins for Dalit parties (such as in New Delhi: Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi. Uttar Pradesh) have enabled the establishment of a Kapur, D., C. B. Prasad, L. Pritchett, and D. S. Babu. 2010. political identity for Dalits to an extent that no other “Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the excluded group has been able to replicate. Market Reform Era.” Economic and Political Weekly 45 (35): 39–49.Draft In sum, we find that despite localized changes, Loury, G. C. 1999. “Social Exclusion and Ethnic Groups: The there have been modest changes for Dalits in the Challenge to Economics.” Paper prepared for the Annual aggregate. The space for mobility has probably been World Bank Conference on Development Economics, limited largely due to the initial conditions for Dalits Washington, DC, April 28–30. (for instance their lack of assets, poor access to mar- Munshi, K., and M. Rosenzweig. 2005. “Why Is Mobility kets and social networks and so on). Yet caste is far in India So Low? Social Insurance, Inequality, and from the immutable frame that Weber (1958) seemed Growth.” Draft working paper, Center for International to suggest it was. It has, in fact, evolved and mutated in Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. different ways and is reflective of changing economic ———. 2006. “Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: opportunities and the new idioms of self-assertion that Caste, Gender and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Dalits have gathered over time. The story is more com- Economy.,” American Economic Review, 96 (4): 1225–52. plex and by no means are we seeing the annihilation Nambissan, G. B. 2010. “Exclusion and Discrimination in of caste, as Ambedkar (1936) had exhorted Indians to Schools: Experiences of Dalit Children.”, In Blocked by achieve. Remnants of the system remain, as evidenced Caste: Economic Discrimination in Modern India, ed. in the manner in which the education and labor market S. Thorat and K. S. Newman, 253–86. New York USA: operate for the Dalits in India. Oxford University Press. Prasad, C. 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