equal by law, unequal by caste - International Dalit Solidarity Network

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284 Wisconsin International Law Journalfood security, 153 and without the basic amenities of electricity, sanitation,and safe drinking water. 154 Almost two decades later, economic reformsin India cling faithfully to the flawed “trickle down” theory—a theorythat holds even less relevance for Dalits for whom few benefits canpermeate the caste ceiling or trickle below the “upper-caste” strangleholdon the fruits of economic growth. Unprecedented economic growth hascoincided comfortably with a post-reform reversal in poverty reductiontrends. 155 Economic liberalization, for Dalits at least, may be fuelingeconomic inequality. 156As liberalization leads to a capital-intensive mode of productionrequiring a greater proportion of highly skilled workers to manageautomated production processes, a large migration of unskilled labor tothe agricultural sector has led to lower wages for agricultural workers asa whole. 157 In addition to a reduction in agricultural subsidies, Dalits arealso affected by the increased acquisition of coastal lands bymultinationals (via the central government) for aquaculture projects. 158Dalits are the main laborers and tenants of coastal land areas and areincreasingly being forced to leave these areas—to live as displacedpeople—as foreign investment rises. 159A reduction in the budget and fiscal deficit, devaluation,privatization, the elimination or reductions in subsidies, and exportpromotion have all contributed to inflation. 160 As is true the world over,inflation hits the poorest the hardest. With most of their earnings spenton food, shelter, and clothing, any rise in prices has had a direct negative153 See id. at 3-4 (noting that a decrease in capital expenditure and fertilizer subsidies has weakenedagriculture. The devaluation of the rupee has created more demand for the export of food grainsand the production of non-food exportables, leading to a reduction of foodstocks available forsustenance that in turn causes the price of food to rise substantially). Id.154 See NHRC REPORT, supra note 110, at 159 (stating that 30.91 percent of Dalit households haveelectricity—half the number of non-Dalit households (61.31 percent)—that more than 20 percentof Dalits lack access to clean drinking water, and that only 9.84 percent of Scheduled Castehouseholds have access to sanitation, compared with 26.76 percent of non-Scheduled Castehouseholds).155 Government spending to curb poverty has been drastically reduced as has spending on diseaseprevention and control. Teltumbde, supra note 152, at 9-10.156 SMITA NARULA & MARTIN MACWAN, INT’L COUNCIL ON HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY,“UNTOUCHABILITY:” THE ECONOMIC EXCLUSION OF DALITS IN INDIA 9 (2001), available athttp://www.international-council.org/paper_files/113_w_07.pdf.157 Id.158 Id. See also Sukhadeo Thorat & Martin Macwan, Liberalisation and Dalits, in RESERVATION INPRIVATE SECTOR: QUEST FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND GROWTH 253, 259 (S. Thorat, Aryama& P. Negi eds., 2005).159 NARULA & MACWAN, supra note 156, at 9.160 Id.
Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequal by Caste 285effect on Dalits’ level of consumption. A lack of purchasing power iscompounded by the devaluation of currency and has led to a rise inprices for general essential imports. 161Empirical studies seem to confirm that poverty rates areuniformly higher in Dalit households (as compared to “higher-caste”households). 162 Eighty-five percent of Dalits live in rural areas 163 whileover 75 percent of Dalits perform land-connected work; 25 percent asmarginal or small farmers and over 50 percent as landless laborers 164earning less than US$1 per day. 165 Though only 16 percent of thepopulation, Dalits comprise 60 percent of those below the poverty line. 166According to government estimates in 2000, the unemploymentrate for Dalits and tribal groups was double that of non-Dalits/tribals. 167Additionally, public sector divestment to private owners is estimated tohave left two hundred thousand Dalit employees jobless. 168 Dalitscontinue to be significantly underrepresented in most professional strataand their representation in India’s high industries, exports, imports, and161 Teltumbde, supra note 152, at 6. A survey of bank lending practices in the post-liberalizationperiod revealed that market-based banking practices have proved less equitable than the Indianpublic sector model that existed prior to liberalization. The percentage of Dalit rural householdsborrowing from the formal sector fell a dramatic 16.3 percentage points since 1992. A majorityof rural Dalit households currently borrow from informal sources. The data suggests that marketdetermined banking practices have not turned out to be more equitable than the banking modelfollowed for decades by the Indian public sector. See Marketing Casteism, ECONOMIC TIMES,Aug. 21, 2007, available at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Todays_Features/Perspectives/Marketing_casteism/rssarticleshow/msid-2296650,curpg-2.cms (last visited Aug.15, 2008); Pallavi Chauhan, Access to Bank Credit, 42 ECON. & POL. WKLY. 3219 (2007).162 See Human Poverty and Socially Disadvantaged Groups in India, supra note 91, at 30, 33.In year 2000, at the all-India level, the average expenditure for [Scheduled Castes]and the [Scheduled Tribes] was Rs. 285 and R. 260 respectively, much lower than thenon-[Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes] (Rs. 393) . . . . [I]n relative terms thepoverty gap between the [Scheduled Castes] SCs, the [Scheduled Tribes] STs, andnon-SC/STs increased between 1983 and 2000.Meenakshi, Ray, and Gupta present a comprehensive set of poverty estimates at the state leveland for rural and urban areas. They conclude that poverty rates are consistently higher forscheduled caste, scheduled tribe, and female-headed households (relative to other socioeconomicgroups), irrespective of which deprivation measure was used. J.V. Meenakshi, Ranjan Ray, &Souvik Gupta, Estimates of Poverty for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Female-HeadedHouseholds, 35 ECON. & POL. WKLY. 2748, 2754 (2000).163 See Narula & Macwan, supra note 156.164 Teltumbde, supra note 152, at 3.165 HIDDEN APARTHEID, supra note 5, at 86.166 India: The Broken People (Channel 4 television broadcast Sept. 21, 2007) (United Kingdom),available at http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/india+the+broken+people/830447 (last visited Aug. 15, 2008).167 HIDDEN APARTHEID, supra note 5, at 6.168 Id.
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