Human Development in India - NCAER

208 human development in indiafive years to deal with a medical emergency, and 6 per centhad to borrow to finance regular consumption. If sellingland or jewellery is an indicator of extreme vulnerability, 2per cent of the households had to sell land and 3 per cent hadto sell jewellery to repay loans in the preceding five years.While recognizing these vulnerabilities, we were deeplyhumbled by the resolve and creativity shown by the Indianfamilies. Nearly 50 per cent of rural elderly men and 31 percent of urban elderly men continue to work well into theirseventies, a time, when by most standards, they should beable to enjoy retirement. Families continue to provide careand support for each other. Seventy seven per cent of theelderly above 60 years reside with married children, or otherrelatives. Individuals work hard to patch together livelihoodsand often work in whatever jobs they can find. It is notuncommon to see a rural man working for a few days a yearon his own farm, a few days as an agricultural labourer in anadjoining farm, and in construction labour during the nonagriculturalseason, while his wife looks after animals, takescare of agricultural tasks, and engages in sewing, or makingpickles to supplement the family income.However, for us personally, it is the message of hope thatis the most striking. Even among households that have seenlittle of India’s much trumpeted 9 per cent economic growth,there is a great desire to ensure that their children will partakein this growth in the decades to come. More than 90 per centof children aged 6–14 have attended school at some point intheir young lives, and 85 per cent were enrolled at the timeof the interview. Girls are somewhat less likely to be enrolled,but they are not far behind their brothers now.In articulating these vulnerabilities, creativity, and hopesof the IHDS households, we seek to encourage a discussionof some persistent challenges facing Indian society in thetwenty-first century. Three challenges are particularlynoteworthy:(1) Historical fault lines along gender, caste, and religiousboundaries have remained persistent themes throughoutthis report;(2) Global forces have widened the disparities betweenmetropolitan cities and forgotten villages, and betweenstates that were already more advanced and those miredin the economic doldrums; and(3) In spite of some noteworthy achievements, publicinstitutions in most of India have failed in deliveringbasic services.CASTE, RELIGION, AND GENDER DISPARITIESDifferences in well-being among social groups are long established,but a variety of contemporary forces have conspiredto sustain and sometimes exacerbate these inequalities. Dalitshave long laboured at the margins of a society that dependson that labour, but that has often excluded them. Although,some Adivasis in the North-East have fared better, otherAdivasis have either lived in such remote locations that theyhave been left out of the recent economic progress or havebeen forced to migrate, only to work as low paid labourers. Insome cases, such as for OBCs and Muslims, historical disadvantageshave been exacerbated by structural shifts. A declinein artisan incomes has affected Muslims disproportionately,while agricultural stagnation has disproportionately affectedOBCs, especially. These historical and contemporary forcesare manifested in the continuing human developed disparitiespresented in this report.In general, the IHDS finds that Adivasis and Dalits arestill at the bottom on most indicators of well-being, Muslimsand OBCs occupy the middle, and forward caste Hindus andother minority religions are at the top. We see these patternsin a variety of indicators: household incomes and povertyrates, landownership and agricultural incomes, health, andeducation. These group positions are not immutable, andon some dimensions we see slightly different rankings.For example, Adivasis generally have slightly better healthoutcomes (that is, reported short-term morbidity and childmortality), probably as a function of living in the North-East,where health care appears to be of higher quality. Similarly,when it comes to education, Muslims are as disadvantagedas Dalits and Adivasis, although their economic well-being ismore at par with that of OBCs.Two aspects of these social group disparities deserveattention. First, much of the inequality seems to emergefrom differential access to livelihoods. Salaried jobs pay farmore than casual labour or farming. These jobs elude thedisadvantaged groups for many reasons. Living in ruralareas, having lower education, and arguably having fewerconnections for job search, all may play a role. Regardlessof the reason, more than three out of ten forward casteand minority religion men have salaried jobs, comparedwith about two out of ten Muslim, OBC, and Dalit menand even fewer Adivasi men. Dalits and Adivasis are furtherdisadvantaged by not owing land, or owning some, mainly,low productivity land. Not surprisingly, these incomedifferences translate into differences in other indicators ofhuman development.Second, as if inequalities in the parental generationwere not enough, future generations seem doomed toreplicate these inequalities because of the continuingdifferences in education—both in quality and quantity.In spite of the long history of positive discriminationpolicies—particularly, reservation in college admission—social inequalities begin early in primary schools. Thus,affirmative action remedies are too little and too late by thetime students reach the higher secondary level. The IHDSnot only documents these substantial disparities in school