Caste & the labour market
MADHURA SWAMINATHAN
Caste discrimination not only persists but has taken new forms and
penetrated into new systems
BLOCKED BY CASTE, ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION IN MODERN INDIA: Edited by
Sukhadeo Thorat, Katherine S. Newman; Oxford University Press, YMCA
Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 750.
This is an excellent volume — carefully-researched and eye-opening —
on caste-based injustice in our society and economy. Now, while there
is a literature that documents discrimination and the denial of civil
liberties, there is very little understanding and research on the
practice of caste discrimination in markets, notably in modern, urban
and metropolitan settings, and in public institutions. This book takes
up the challenge of understanding the latter by means of systematic
research on the question.
A useful four-fold classification of the types of discrimination is
proposed by Thorat and Newman: complete exclusion, selective
inclusion, unfavourable inclusion, and selective exclusion. Complete
exclusion would occur, for example, if Dalits were totally excluded
from purchase of land in certain residential areas. Selective
inclusion refers to differential treatment or inclusion in markets,
such as disparity in payment of wages to Dalit workers and other
workers. Unfavourable inclusion or forced inclusion refers to tasks in
which Dalits are incorporated based on traditional caste practices,
such as bonded labour. Lastly, selective exclusion refers to exclusion
of those involved in "polluting occupations" (such as leather tanning
or sanitary work) from certain jobs and services.
Study in rural areas
There is a body of research on discrimination in rural areas and on
the continuation of caste barriers to economic and social mobility in
village India. There is a myth, however, that caste does not matter in
the urban milieu and that, with the anonymity of the big city and with
education and associated job and occupational mobility (assisted by
affirmative action), traditional caste-based discriminatory practices
disappear. This book explodes that myth in a set of chapters that
focus on the formal labour market. These chapters use methodologies
developed in the United States to study racial discrimination, and are
written in collaboration with scholars from the U.S.
Thorat and Attewell ran an experiment to test caste discrimination in
the urban labour market. For one year, researchers collected
advertisements from leading English language newspapers for jobs in
the private sector that required a university degree but no
specialised skills. The researchers then submitted three false
applications for each job. The applicants, all male, had the same or
similar education qualification and experience. One of them had a
recognisable upper caste Hindu name, another a Muslim name and the
third a distinctly Dalit name. The expected outcome was a call for
interview or further screening.
An analysis of the outcomes, using regression methods, showed that,
although there were an equal number of false applicants from three
social groups, for every 10 upper caste Hindu applicants selected for
interview, only six Dalits and three Muslims were chosen. Thus, in
modern private enterprises (including IT), applicants with a typical
Muslim or Dalit name had a lower chance of success than those with the
same qualification and an upper caste Hindu name.
In another chapter, Jodhka and Newman report on detailed interviews
with human resource managers of 25 large firms in New Delhi. All the
managers insisted that hiring was solely on the basis of "merit," and
old practices such as hiring kin or members of the same community did
not exist.
At the same time, every hiring manager said "family background"
(including the educational level of parents) was critical in
evaluating a potential employee. This is clearly discriminatory, for
Dalit applicants may not have the same social and educational
background as those from the upper castes. As the authors note, "one
must take the profession of deep belief in meritocracy with a heavy
dose of salt."
These findings raise serious questions about allowing the corporate
sector to monitor itself in respect of "inclusive employment" instead
of making it abide by a policy of reservation.
Another set of chapters explores the patterns of discrimination in
public services and public institutions, including in health care
services, in schools, and in programmes of food security.
Sanghmitra Acharya gives a detailed account of various forms of
discrimination experienced by Dalit children in gaining access to
health care from both private and public providers in rural Gujarat
and Rajasthan. Untouchability was reported by children "seven out of
10 times" from "doctors, laboratory technicians, and registered
medical practitioners", and it was "more vigorously practised by
pharmacists, ANMs and AWWs." Geetha Nambissan writes of similar
experiences of Dalit children in schools in rural and urban Rajasthan.
Or, take the case of the public distribution system (PDS). Fair price
shops are owned privately or run by cooperatives or, in a few cases,
by government. An analysis by Thorat and Lee, drawing on a survey of
PDS outlets in 531 villages across five States, shows that there was
discriminatory behaviour against Dalits by the PDS staff in respect of
prices in 28 per cent of villages and in respect of quality in 40 per
cent. In 26 per cent of the villages, dealers practised untouchability
"by dropping goods from above into cupped Dalit hands below, so as to
avoid 'polluting contact'."
As the authors say, to term the prevalence of such practices as merely
the "phenomenon of caste discrimination remaining or still continuing
or lingering" is to not understand that these practices are associated
with new institutions set up after Independence and after the legal
abolition of untouchability.
Penal action
An important and urgent policy implication of this set of studies is
that the government needs to ensure that its own policies and
progarammes (such as the public distribution system or provision of
mid-day meal to school children or of health care at Public Health
Centres) are implemented in a non-discriminatory manner. Institutions
(whether public, cooperative, or non-governmental) that accept
government funds or implement government programmes must be held
responsible and penalised if they practice untouchability.
A fair-price shop dealer is both a private individual and an arm of
public policy, and the severest action should be taken if he is found
to discriminate against Dalits or those from other socially
disadvantaged groups.
In conclusion, this book — based on careful and a methodologically
innovative research — shows that caste discrimination not only
persists but has taken new forms and penetrated into new systems and
institutional structures. It also raises serious questions about
patterns of economic development.
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