Caste Inequalities Research Articles

Prabhanjan will narrates short stories Puduvai Tamil status of during the French rule

This Article, The Position of The Tamils of Pondicherry during the French rule, which deals with the short stories of Vishwasan, who is one of the most important tamil short story creators, is based on the short stories of The Cycle, Security, Brother Oro and Business of The Universe. It also examines the difficulties faced by the inequalities of caste and religion and the racist activities of the French rulers, especially when Pondicherry was under the control of the French in the 16th and 19th centuries. This article also deals with the tragic history of the exile of tamil people by using their ignorance and poverty to foreign countries for tea plantation industries.

Caste in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Historically, it is a glaring fact that any disaster or pandemic made the Dalit and Adivasi as the worst victim. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to unfold the caste dynamics and social realities around the debate of the COVID-19 pandemic. A unique feature of India’s caste system is in its flexibility. Therefore, even during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the prescribed medical guidelines of ‘social distancing’ encourages the Savarnas to strengthen the caste prejudices in the name of science. Apart from this, the prescribed guidelines for ‘social distancing’ and ‘home quarantine’ exposed the graded caste inequality in India. The empirical evidence from this study brings it to the forefront that a graded caste inequality persists in household’s availability of exclusive room with attached toilet facilities and adequate ventilation facilities, household’s access to exclusive drinking water source, household’s affordability in practising hand wash with soap or detergent, etc. Therefore, when the Forward caste become the most privileged in maintaining the home quarantine and complete isolation, it becomes an unaffordable luxury for the Dalits. It makes the Dalits most vulnerable during this pandemic. Therefore, this pandemic provides a stark example of the pervasiveness and perniciousness of social inequality in India.

Towards transformative WASH: an integrated case study exploring environmental, sociocultural, economic and institutional risk factors contributing to infant enteric infections in rural tribal India

BackgroundDespite clear linkages between poor Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) and enteric disease, the design of effective WASH interventions that reduce child enteric infections and stunting rates has proved challenging. WASH factors as currently defined do not capture the overall exposure factors to faecal pathogens through the numerous infection transmission pathways. Understanding the multiple and multifaceted factors contributing to enteric infections and their interconnectedness is key to inform future interventions. This study aimed to perform an in-depth holistic exploration of the environmental, socio-cultural, economic and institutional context surrounding infants to develop an integrated understanding of enteric infection drivers in rural tribal Banswara, in Rajasthan State, India.MethodsThis study relied on the triangulation of mixed-methods to capture critical influences contributing to infant enteric infection transmission. We conducted structured observations and exploratory qualitative research across 9 rural tribal villages, including transect walks, household observations, interviews with frontline health workers and group discussions with mothers. The emergent social themes and identified factors were mapped based on the scale of agency (individual, family or community-level factor) and on their nature (environmental, socio-cultural, economic and institutional factors).ResultsInfants aged 5 to 24 months were seen to have constant exposures to dirt via mouthing of soil, soiled hands, soiled objects and food. Rudimentary household environments with dirt floors and domestic animals lacked a hygiene-enabling environment that hindered hygienic behaviour adoption. Several unsafe behaviours failing to interrupt infants’ exposures to pathogens were captured, but caregivers reported a lack of self-efficacy skills to separate children from faecal exposures due to the rural farming environments where they lived. Conceptual mapping helped understand how wider-level societal factors such as socio-economic limitations, caste inequalities, and political corruption may have trickle-down effects on the caregivers’ motivation and perceived self-efficacy for improving hygiene levels around children, highlighting the influence of interconnected broader factors.ConclusionsConceptual mapping proved useful to develop an integrated understanding of the interlinked factors across socio-ecological levels and domains, highlighting the role of wider sociocultural, economic and institutional factors contributing to infant’s enteric infection risks. Future WASH interventions are likely to require similar integrated approaches that account for the complex factors at all levels.

GIRLS’ SCHOOLING AND POVERTY: INSIGHTS FROM FIELDWORK IN TWO VILLAGES IN THE SUNDARBAN REGION

Basic education for girls enhances the process of social development and women’s empowerment. Inequalities and deprivation are faced by many children, and lives of young girls are more vulnerable. This is more significant in countries marked by unequal distribution of wealth and social inequalities of class, caste, ethnicity, religion and region. Gender is a cross-cutting category and societies with high inequality are typically marked by systemic discrimination against girls from marginalized communities. This paper attempts to explore the school participation of disadvantaged girl children of two marginalized remote villages of Dhuri and Kumrakhali of the Sundarbans region of West Bengal. The study of their participation has been approached in terms of access, enrolment, attendance, retention and educational attainment. It situates participation within various dynamics of the region like poverty, vulnerability and emerging communal political tension. Further, it also looks at how alternative income sources such as collecting small tiger prawn seeds (TPS) in the river and zari work available in the villages impacts elementary education of girl children in the selected villages.

Pokéwalking in the City: Pokémon GO and the Ludic Geographies of Digital Capitalism, A View from Jaffna, Sri Lanka

This article uses the author's play of Pokémon GO while conducting dissertation research on mobilities and masculinities in postwar Jaffna, Sri Lanka as a starting point for a wider consideration of ludic geographies and their increasing entanglement with digital capitalism. While new advancements in mobile and digital technologies present exciting new possibilities for occupying and moving through public spaces, we should not forget that the driving force of capitalism is to produce profits nor should we ignore the continuing social inequalities of race, gender, and caste, which also impact access to the possibilities these new technological developments represent.

In the Name of Merit: Ethical Violence and Inequality at a Business School

This study examines how meritocracy as a collective social imaginary promoting social justice and fairness reproduces class and caste inequalities and fosters ethical violence. We interrogate discourse of merit in the narratives of the professional–managerial class-in-making at an Indian business school. Empirically, we draw on interviews, full-text responses to a qualitative questionnaire, and a student’s poem. We describe how business school students articulate merit as a neoliberal ethic, emphasizing prudential, enterprising attitudes, and responsibility. However, this positive, aspirational facade of merit masks practices of ethical violence, wherein individuals invoke an ethical principle as grounds for moral condemnation and linguistic injuries. These practices of ethical violence desubjectify disadvantaged students and result in silence as a form of inequality. We contribute to organizational research on inequalities by foregrounding ethical violence and desubjectification. We detail the possibilities of discursive agency in contesting and interrupting ethical violence.

Recasting Land: Agrarian Urbanism in Amaravati

The article explores how the unfolding of the Amaravati project in Andhra Pradesh, India, was shaped by the region’s caste-based agrarian social and political formation. It shows how caste structures not only access to land, resources and power, but also the agrarian land transition in the context of a ‘new city’ project. In particular, caste structured the process of land pooling as well as the land market due to the historical embedding of caste in the land governance system. The article outlines two major ways in which caste inequalities and tensions were reproduced and sharpened—the rapid dispossession of Dalits by the unleashing of a speculative land market, and their marginalisation in the land pooling process. These processes are attributed to the institutionalisation of caste within the land revenue bureaucracy and the entrenchment of caste power and ideology within and beyond the state in the Coastal Andhra region, leading to a caste-based ‘land grab’. In response, Dalits mounted opposition to their marginalisation by framing unequal compensation for assigned lands and the alienation of assigned lands as manifestations of caste oppression. The eruption of caste struggles around land in what was supposed to become India’s first ‘fully planned’ city illustrates a key dimension of ‘agrarian urbanisation’ in contemporary India.

Gods and the Oppressed: A Study on Theyyam Performers of North Malabar

Caste and caste inequalities are existing as a factual reality in the present day too. In Kerala, irrespective of high development, literacy and secularism, caste is still a crucial matter in the social and cultural life of the people. Related to the caste system in the Hindu religion is hierarchy in status, prevailing inequalities in power and wealth as well as imbalances in the religious sphere. This study explores such a case in which the famous religious ritual of kaliyattam in Northern Kerala is subjected to an ethnographic investigation. What resulted is the understanding of the harsh realities existing in the society in terms of caste and ritual authorities and exploitation. The different communities in the region that are a part of the ritual have to follow strict customs, which are mostly exploitative economically and unjustifiable and inhumane socially.

Intersection of class, caste, gender and unmet healthcare needs in India: Implications for health policy

Despite renewed policy priorities to universalise health coverage, unmet need for healthcare is long-standing concern in India. The recent data suggests the unmet healthcare need amounts to a notable share of twelve per cent. While studies have examined inequalities in healthcare utilisation in single axes of social power, there was no consensus on the role of the intersectionality between class, caste and gender in shaping the unmet health need. Utilising data from National Sample survey 75th round (2017–18), this paper identifies the factors contributing to such unmet need and investigate the intersectionality of class with caste and gender in determining unmet need. The contribution of socioeconomic factors was assessed by the decomposition method & multivariate logistic regression was used to measure inter and intra-class differentials in unmet need.The analysis informs that class inequality is fundamental to having unmet need with limited role of gender and caste. Economic class however, interacting with caste and gender unfolds wider gaps in access to healthcare. While inter-class differences in unmet need are observed across caste as well as gender, intra-class differences intensify more by caste inequalities. The findings indicate the significance of the intersectional approach in identifying the sources of health inequity and special recognition to the income-poor and socially marginalised in policy agenda. Eliminating the barriers to health care access therefore needs a multidimensional construct of identifying combination of attributes to be focused towards realization of universal health coverage. These observations should aid in formulation and restructuring of the existing healthcare interventions to achieve equity in healthcare provision.

IsabelWilkersonCaste: The Origins of Our DiscontentsRandom House, 2020. 496 p. $32.00

IsabelWilkersonCaste: The Origins of Our DiscontentsRandom House, 2020. 496 p. $32.00

Indebted by dispossession: The long‐term impacts of a Special Economic Zone on caste inequality in rural Telangana

AbstractThis paper contributes to a growing scholarship examining the ways in which dispossession in neoliberal India is reinforcing and reconfiguring agrarian social hierarchies. Existing studies have focussed on the differential successes of villagers in Special Economic Zone (SEZ)‐generated real estate markets, incorporation of land losers into stratified labour markets and the caste‐based politics of dispossession. Few studies, however, have systematically explored the long‐term implications of state‐orchestrated dispossession on agrarian credit and debt relations. Based on long‐term fieldwork on a village partially expropriated for a SEZ in the South Indian state of Telangana, this study shows how dispossession has led to a sharp rise of over‐indebtedness within the land losing population. Dispossession deprived villagers of land and livestock; low compensation was inadequate to obtain replacement assets; and labour inside the SEZ was insufficient to ensure the reproduction of most households. The result was a cascading process of indebtedness for consumption smoothing that was generalized but the greatest among former untouchables (Scheduled Castes, SCs) and Lambadas (Scheduled Tribes, STs). Since dispossession precluded these historically marginalized groups from access to institutional credit, their reliance on largely upper caste moneylenders—whose land was spared expropriation—was deepened. Thus, I show how dispossession for neoliberal projects has reinforced this traditional caste‐based form of exploitation.

பாரம்பரியக் கூத்தில் பறையறைவோன் பாத்திரமும் அதன் மீளுருவாக்கமும்

The caste structure, which is deeply rooted in the culture of Tamil societies and its inequitable mentality, has a great influence on the traditional forms of performing arts carried on by Tamils.We often see caste inequality and gender discrimination reinforced in traditional chants that are mostly epic and mythologically centered. As a result, traditional performances have become increasingly predictable. The vast majority of artists who seek to speak of the progressive issues of the time are drawn to express their ideas not in the traditional arts but in the modern art form. In this context, the participatory research work on the koothu renaissance carried out at the Eelathu Kootharangu in the years 2002-2003 is proposed as a practical study to recreate the subject of traditional performing arts forms with the participation of the communities that follow them in a timely manner. In this way, this article examines the process by which the Valluvar community, which has been marginalized as a marginalized caste in Tamil culture, and the rhetorical character it represents, have recreated that character in a contemporary manner, questioning the structure of Eelam’s Vadamodik koothu.

Tikḍe šīše kī vyathā / The Tale of the Cracked Mirror (A Сhapter from Chāṅgiā rukh / Against the Night)

The commented translation of a chapter from the Chāṅgiā rukh (Against the Night) autobiography (2002) by Balbir Madhopuri, a renowned Indian writer, poet, translator, journalist, and social activist, brings forward episodes from the life of Dalit inhabitants of a Punjab village in the 1960–1970s. Following the school of hard knocks of his childhood in the chamar quarter of Madhopur, a village in Jalandhar district, Balbir Madhopuri managed to receive a good education and take to literature. He has authored 14 books, including three volumes of poetry, translated 36 pieces of world literary classics into Punjabi, his mother language, and edited 44 books in Punjabi. In 2014, he was awarded the Translation Prize from India’s Sahitya Academy for his contribution to the development and promotion of Punjabi. His new fiction novel Miṭṭī bol paī (Earth Has Spoken, 2020) focuses on the struggle of downtrodden Punjabis for their human rights and the ad-dharam movement in the North of India in the 1920–1940s. Narrating his autobiography, Balbir Madhopuri shares memories, thoughts, and emotions from childhood and youth days that determined his motivations to struggle against poverty, deprivation, and injustice. The chapter Tikḍe šīše kī vyathā (The Tale of the Cracked Mirror [Madhopuri, 2010]) tells readers about the everyday life of Madhopur, complicated relationships between the village inhabitants, as well as about the destinies of low-caste Punjabis. Memories of joys and sorrows, hopes and fears of the childhood years go side by side with Balbir Madhopuri’s reflections on social oppression and caste inequality that remain in contemporary India’s society.

Caste Inequality in Indian States

Caste is arguably one of the most important factors that determines social and economic outcomes in India. Few studies, however, have systematically examined caste-based inequality comparatively. This note measures contemporary levels of caste inequality in Indian states by conceptualizing equality in three distinct ways: i) equality of outcome, measured through differences in income by caste ii) equality of opportunity, as reflected in caste-based difference in literacy rates, and iii) equality of status, reflected in the prevalence of inter-caste marriage, practices of untouchability, and violence against lower castes. As scholars of social movements predict, I find that the southern states are indeed more egalitarian in most measures of caste-based inequality. But contrary to expectation, the three measures are not highly correlated. A closer interpretation of the results suggests that this discrepancy may be because differences in social transformation across states. Regions where caste-based hierarchy is challenged may reflect higher levels of social conflict.

Ethnicization of religion in practice? Recasting competing communal mobilizations in coastal Karnataka, South India

We examine the competing processes of ethnicization taking place among Hindu and Muslim religious communities in the coastal region of Karnataka state in South India in the broader context of hegemonic ascendancy of Hindu nationalism in the country. We describe how an array of militant Hindutva organizations use an institutionalized system of religious vigilantism and violence against minorities to construct an ethnicized, exclusivist moral community of Hindus in the region. This construction of an ethno-Hinduism by a clever depoliticizing of caste inequalities and violence seeks to produce and naturalize religious difference into an incorrigible and exclusivist ethnic identity that thrives on a continuous process of enemy-making. Responding to this predatory ethnicization executed by militant Hindutva organizations, and capitalizing on the pervasive sense of alienation and anxiety of the Muslims in the region, radical Islamic organizations engage in a counter-predatory ethnicization of Muslim communities in the region. These organizations, while officially articulating secular positions, use the language of self-defence and securitization, coupled with radical Islamic identity for mass mobilization, to create an exclusive Islamic moral community, often mirroring the tactics of Hindutva vigilante organizations. We conclude that these competing processes of ethnicization of religious identities and the emergence of a ‘vigilante public’ will have far-reaching consequences for the central facets of democracy such as citizenship and secularism while leaving the socio-cultural spaces in coastal Karnataka highly polarized on religious lines and peaceful co-existence of religious communities challenging and undesirable.

INTERSECTIONAL GRIEVANCES IN CARE WORK: FRAMING INEQUALITIES OF GENDER, CLASS AND CASTE*

How do social movements include or exclude intersectional grievances of individual participants? What do variations in framing within the movement tell us about including intersectional grievances? I address these questions by examining frames deployed by anganwadi (childcare) workers in India and their organized union’s documented demands. I utilize a systemic intersectional approach to examine two specific grievances—low wages and weakening of public provision of care—that lie at the intersection of gender, caste, class, and care work. Workers use intersectional frames to interpret grievances, as they experience intersectional inequalities of gender, caste, and class. Findings show that the union targets the state alone while workers target both state and society. As intersectional grievances are durable inequalities that traverse across the boundaries of state and society, social movement frames may need a broader prognosis that targets both state and society to include intersectional grievances.

Ambedkarites in Making: The Process of Awakening and Conversion to Buddhism among Non-Mahar Communities in Maharashtra

Scholars have presented Buddhist discourse in Maharashtra- the western part of India, as an expression of protest and emancipation of the former untouchable caste Mahar. But in the recent past, people from different social backgrounds belonging to non-Mahar castes have embraced Buddhism. Now it has become the collective discourse of protest of different castes and tribes from marginalized communities. This paper, an outcome of my anthropological study, concerns with changing consciousness among non-Mahar castes regarding conversion to Buddhism as a tool of resistance to overcome caste inequalities. Brahmanical patriarchy is the basis on which the caste system thrives, thus it is the root of women’s oppression. Women’s assertion for a gender-equal society and its actual implementation on the ground constitutes a major part of the anti-caste movement. Therefore, this study also seeks the answer to the question of how Buddhism helps to rupture the caste patriarchy and its rigid structure. A significant indicator would be to see precisely how women are breaking those age-old boundaries of castes. Therefore, this paper also addresses the issue of women’s emancipation through Buddhism and how it challenges the Brahmanical patriarchy and liberates its women followers from oppression.

Relational approaches to poverty in rural India: social, ecological and technical dynamics

ABSTRACT Poverty is now widely recognised as multidimensional, with indicators including healthcare, housing and sanitation. Yet, relational approaches that foreground political-cultural processes remain marginalised in policy discourses. Focusing on India, we review a wide range of relational approaches to rural poverty. Beginning with early approaches that focus on structural reproduction of class, caste and to a lesser extent gender inequality, we examine new relational approaches developed in the last two decades. The new approaches examine diverse ways in which poverty is experienced and shapes mobilisations against deprivation. They draw attention to poor people’s own articulations of deprivation and alternate conceptions of well-being. They also show how intersecting inequalities of class, caste and gender shape governance practices and political movements. Despite these important contributions, the new relational approaches pay limited attention to technologies and ecologies in shaping the experience of poverty. Reviewing studies on the Green Revolution and wider agrarian transformations in India, we then sketch the outlines of a hybrid relational approach to poverty that combines socio-technical and -ecological dynamics. We argue that such an approach is crucial to challenge narrow economising discourses on poverty and to bridge the policy silos of poverty alleviation and (environmentally) sustainable development.

Caste: Understanding the Nuances from Ambedkar’s Expositions

Caste as a concept posed a great challenge to the academic world both due to its origin and implications. Most of the academics have analysed its existence and described the operations with some implications. Dr Ambedkar had not only written on the issues of caste inequality but also fought against it in India, especially for the human rights of ex-untouchables known as Dalit’s. Therefore, it is imperative to understand his views on caste inequality which is structural in nature. As we know that, caste is a foundation of the society and it has manifested in social, economic, political and educational inequalities among various classes of the Indian society, especially caste Hindus. However, this article attempts to understand his views in the present context of growing caste inequality. In fact, there has not been much attention paid to his thought in the Indian academic world. This article also aims to enhance the understanding of caste inequality in the face of increasing global inequality of the world. In the present context, the economic gap between higher castes and lower castes is increasing in all the sphere of human life. There are changes in caste inequality at the superficial level, but there are no changes at the structural level of caste. Caste inequality has manifested in a worst form of discrimination and untouchability on the basis of birth. This article deliberates on the distinctive ideas of Dr Ambedkar on caste and its annihilation. We view this on the background of writings on caste by a selective sociologist. One needs no reiteration of the fact that caste is deeply rooted in Indian society and strengthened through various catalysts. Annihilation of caste besides analysing the origin, its perpetuation also connotes a reconstruction of Indian society based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, which were the basic commitments of Dr Ambedkar and embedded in Buddhism as the egalitarian religion of India. Here we touch up on the interdisciplinary contributions of Dr Ambedkar through his analysis of caste, never ever carried forward significantly. Annihilation of caste was not for a single religion, it was for all as well since all are infected by the hierarchy, if not caste. It is established here that the ideas of Ambedkar on caste and its annihilation are worth revisiting, when the discourses on caste are taking their wayward path. The article is divided into two parts. First, it explores the ideas of Ambedkar on the mechanism, genesis and development of caste; and second, how other scholars have understood caste in order to understand Indian society at large. Dr Ambedkar was a protagonist of modern democratic principles such as justice, liberty and equality.

Inequality in policy implementation: caste and electrification in rural India

AbstractWe examine unequal outcomes in the implementation of India’s national rural electrification program in Uttar Pradesh. We ask two questions: (1) to what extent did Dalits, the lowest group in India’s caste hierarchy, receive less attention when the state electrified rural communities? (2) Was BSP, the state’s Dalit party, able to reduce this inequality? Using data from a hundred thousand villages, we provide robust evidence for unequal outcomes. Villages inhabited solely by Dalits were 20 percentage points less likely to be covered by the program than villages without any Dalits. Moreover, a regression discontinuity analysis shows that the electoral success of BSP failed to reduce such differences. These results highlight the magnitude and persistence of caste inequality in the implementation of democratic public policy, despite political representation.