Castes of mind
Sunil Jain Posted online: Fri Dec 30 2011, 03:13 hrs
Two events in recent weeks have focused attention on the politics of
socio-religious groups — the Dalit trade fair in Mumbai visited by the
likes of Ratan Tata, and the 4.5 per cent reservation for Muslims from
the OBC quota. As it happens, there are also two new studies — one by
Sukhadeo Thorat and Amaresh Dubey and the other by Rajeev Dehejia and
Arvind Panagariya — that shed light on what works and what doesn't,
when it comes to caste groups.
First, a bit of a statistical fix on how various groups are doing in
terms of their income levels. The discrimination seems apparent from
the bald facts. SC/ST accounted for 22.9 per cent of the population in
2004-05 but just 15.4 per cent of the country's income; the figures
for Hindu OBCs were 35.6 per cent and 32.7 per cent, for upper-caste
Hindus the figures are 27.7 per cent and 38 per cent. For upper caste
Muslims, the figures were 4.5 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively
(in relative terms, they're like the Hindu OBCs, though at Rs 65,474,
their annual household incomes in 2004-05 were higher than the Hindu
OBC's Rs 59,249 per annum) (Table 1).
When you go a bit deeper, the discrimination gives way to a more
sobering analysis where factors like education, location and job-type
matter more than just caste — a Hindu upper-caste household's annual
income goes up from Rs 27,650 when the head of the household is
illiterate to Rs 135,535 when he's a graduate; Muslims in Uttar
Pradesh had an annual household income of Rs 53,351 in 2004-05 versus
Rs 60,645 for all-India; SC/STs in Uttar Pradesh had an income of Rs
39,713 versus Rs 43,314 for all-India; for Hindus in general it was Rs
60,630 in UP versus Rs 64,413 all-India.
Between 1993-94 and 2004-05, when the economy was growing at a more
sedate pace, poverty levels for Hindus and Muslims fell by 2.1 per
cent a year — in the case of Muslims, the fall in rural poverty was
higher. Between 2004-05 and 2009-10, the good news is that with the
economy accelerating dramatically, the rate of poverty decline more
than doubled, from 2.1 per cent in the 1993-94 to 2004-05 period to
4.3 per cent in the 2004-05 to 2009-10 period — in this period,
poverty levels for Hindus fell 3.9 per cent per annum versus 5.8 per
cent for Muslims, a simple factor called catch-up where less well-off
groups (even countries, like India) catch up faster with the better
off (Table 2).
For STs, the annual fall in poverty levels accelerated from 1.1 per
cent between 1993-04 and 2004-05 to 5.1 per cent between 2005-05 and
2009-10; for SCs, the fall accelerated from 2 per cent to 4 per cent.
Clearly, the decline in poverty levels is related to the kind of work
various groups do — the fall in poverty levels for farm labour, for
instance, accelerated from 1.7 per cent between 1993-94 and 2004-05 to
4.3 per cent between 2004-05 and 2009-10. In the case of ST farm
labour, the change accelerated from 0.6 per cent to 4.1 per cent which
is what ensured rural poverty levels for STs fell the fastest. In the
case of the self-employed in urban areas, where a lot of Muslims are,
the acceleration in poverty levels is the lowest (while it accelerated
from 2.1 per cent in the first period to 3.7 per cent in the second
period for the entire category of self-employed in urban areas, the
acceleration was only from 1.6 per cent to 1.8 per cent in the case of
Muslim self-employed in urban areas. In other words, instead of
across-the-board reservation, Thorat and Dubey argue, it makes more
sense to tailor policies aimed at sub-groups.
Which takes us to the Dehejia and Panagariya study that focuses on
entrepreneurship in the services sector among the socially
disadvantaged. They use NSS data, the 2001-02 and 2006-07 surveys on
service sector enterprises. Sadly, the data set is restricted to
proprietary and partnership enterprises (there in nothing on corporate
enterprise) but the data sets represent roughly a fourth of GDP and a
tenth of the labour force — so it's not perfect, but it's a good
start.
Dehejia and Panagariya begin by pointing out that not even one of the
55 Indian billionaires in the latest Forbes list is either an SC or an
ST, yet they find that the picture is not as bleak as you'd expect.
SCs, for instance, are 19 per cent of the population and they own 16
per cent of the enterprises in the service sector
proprietary/partnership universe — when it comes to Gross Value Added,
however, their share is a lower 8.5 per cent, suggesting the
productivity of such enterprises is very low. This is where the
inter-linkages Ratan Tata spoke of at the Dalit fair become important
— blind reservation for SCs is of little help, but if large corporates
start buying from them and helping them upgrade, as Tata suggested,
the results will be more effective.
In the case of STs, the picture is depressing — they are 8.1 per cent
of the population, just 2.3 per cent of the Gross Value Added and 3.5
per cent of the number of enterprises. OBCs, as is to be expected, are
the average Indian — 41.2 per cent of the population, 41.6 per cent of
enterprises and 36.9 per cent of the Gross Value Added. Interestingly,
Dehejia and Panagariya point out, in their sample base, the most
important competition for SC entrepreneurs is not from forward castes
but OBCs. The largest growth, in terms of Gross Value Added, between
2001-02 and 2006-07, has been by STs (82 per cent), followed by OBCs
(46 per cent) and then SCs (26 per cent).
As for the help given by government schemes, Dehejia/Panagariya cite a
recent Planning Commission meeting with 30 Dalit crorepatis. Milind
Kamble, the head of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
spoke of how globalisation and the weakening of the licence-permit-raj
helped Dalits seize opportunities. When asked about government
schemes, only one of the 30 said he had used them — he had " applied
for $20,000, spent three years visiting government offices to chase
his money and finally got $15,000". Ratan Tata versus Manmohan Singh,
you know which works better.
The writer is opinion editor, 'The Financial Express'
sunil.jain@expressindia.com
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