July 12, 2011, 8:30 AM IST
India Journal: Combating Caste Bias in the Private Sector
By Adarsh Kumar
There is no denying that India's rapid economic growth and increase in
urbanization have opened new economic and social opportunities for
Dalits, who fall at the lowest end of the caste spectrum. Even so,
the sad reality is that caste-based discrimination and outright
violence against lower castes remain depressingly commonplace in many
spheres.
Most people assume that such caste-biases play no role in the
burgeoning private sector. But the results of a series of studies done
by reputed Indian and American academics, using methods originally
developed to study racial discrimination in the United States, point
to caste-biases in the hiring processes of private companies.
These studies–summaries of which were published as early as 2007 in
the peer-reviewed journal, the Economic and Political Weekly, delve
into the ongoing debate on the merits of extending affirmative action
programs to the private sector.
Trying to redress India's long history of discrimination and unequal
opportunities for Dalits, successive Indian governments have
introduced caste-based quotas in educational institutions, pubic
sector companies and government departments. In its first term
beginning in 2004, the UPA government considered extending these
job-quotas to the private sector but shelved the plan due to strong
opposition.
The private sector argued, through industry associations such as the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), that hiring processes in
their member companies were "caste-blind" and that mandatory
job-quotas would only hurt competitiveness by hampering their ability
to hire the best candidates. The question is: are private sector
hiring processes really caste-blind?
S. Jodhka and Katherine Newman interviewed 25 human resource managers
at companies employing a total of 1.9 million full-time workers and
63,000 sub-contracted workers. The researchers found that although all
the managers listed merit as the sole criteria by which employees were
hired, subjective requirements such as "cosmopolitan attitudes" and
"family background" were also used to select candidates. These
amorphous subjective requirements are loaded against poor, lower-caste
candidates who find it difficult to build personal biographies of the
kind valued by private sector recruiters, the study argued.
Another study by Newman and Deshpande interviewed post-graduate
college students from reputed Delhi universities. They found that
lower-caste students from poor families did indeed find "family
background" questions to be stigmatizing and some "reconfigured" their
biographies to be closer to a perceived upper-middle class
professional ideal.
The most troubling results come from a study by Paul Attewell and
Sukhdeo Thorat, who tested for bias in the first stage of the hiring
process in private sector firms in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore
and Chennai. The study involved responding to newspaper advertisements
for entry-level positions with identical resumes and cover letters.
All the fictitious applicants were male and had relevant degrees from
reputed universities. The applications differed only in one way: the
names of the applicants were changed to reflect distinctively high
caste Hindu names, Dalit names and Muslim names. Research staff
pretending to be the applicants recorded responses from potential
employers. Astonishingly, the study found that, compared to upper
caste Hindus, Dalits were 33% less likely to get a call back for the
next stage of the hiring process, and Muslims were even worse off,
getting called back 66% less frequently.
Experience from other parts of the world tell us that larger social
biases are almost always reflected in the private sector and that
specific safeguards and corrective measures are needed to overturn
them. The results of the above studies calls, at the very least, for a
thorough review of hiring processes to find and correct for biases.
But unfortunately, besides initiatives by individual companies such as
the Tata Group, sector-wide efforts have not gone far enough.
CII launched an affirmative action initiative in 2007, which currently
has 729 signatory companies. Under the initiative, companies agree to
a voluntary Code of Conduct for affirmative action which commits them
to vocational training, educational scholarships and efforts to
increase procurement from lower-caste entrepreneurs.
But a key provision to appoint ombudsmen to investigate complaints of
discrimination has not been implemented; there is no systematic method
to track compliance of signatory companies; and the code itself
commits companies only to making a blanket statement that they will
not indulge in discriminatory practices without laying out any
concrete measures to collect information on and correct biases in
hiring.
Is there middle ground for the private sector between mandatory
job-quotas and pretending that caste-biases do not exist? In the
United States of America, racial discrimination has been reduced by
adopting stricter anti-discrimination laws, mandating reporting
requirements on hiring and proportional employment figures within
companies and creating an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that
enforces the anti-discrimination framework.
Similar efforts need to be explored in India to ensure that historical
patterns of discrimination are not replicated in the rapidly growing
private sector.
[This is the third in a series of India Journals looking at the
intersection of business and the poor in India. His next India Journal
will look at partnerships between farmers and big business through
contract farming.]
Adarsh Kumar is the founder and chief executive of Livelihoods Equity
Connect, a fund that seeks to invest in the Indian agricultural sector
and promote models connecting small farmers to mainstream markets. His
prior work experience includes stints at the Ford Foundation and the
World Bank.
------------------------------------
----
INFORMATION OVERLOAD?
Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to ZESTMedia-digest@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/
PARTICIPATE:-
On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com
TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:-
If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to ZESTCaste-subscribe@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/
Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
ZESTCaste-digest@yahoogroups.com
ZESTCaste-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ZESTCaste-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment