Post-Ambedkar, many generations of Dalits have struggled to make society and politics a more equitable space. However, there is now an emerging cohort of Dalits who have somewhat different needs — capitalising on the benefits of the welfare state, this new class has entered the so-far-unexplored domain of economic competition. Many Dalit businesses have been remarkably successful, even without state support.
More than 150 entrepreneurs participated in the recently concluded National Trade Fair of Dalit Entrepreneurs in Mumbai, including a multi-national manufacturer of sugar with plants in West Africa, a crane manufacturer from Bahadurgarh in Haryana who supplies machines to BHEL, engineering consultants and property developers from Nagpur and a hosiery manufacturer from Ludhiana who exports his entire production to Europe.
This class has not blindly bought into the rhetoric of middle-class aspiration, it understands only too well the difficulties and limits that Dalits face in the open market. Instead, this emerging Dalit class, along with intellectuals and the state, have proposed several new initiatives to ensure their entry into the new economic sphere — and these new approaches have the capacity to tilt the dominant discourse of the globalised market economy.
In the liberal discourse, democracy and capitalism are seen as the two necessary instruments for the overall growth of an individual’s capacities. Dr Ambedkar was influenced by such humanistic liberal values, which were reflected in the Constitution he crafted. However, in actual terms, human relations were still structured by caste and social oppression. Only at exceptional locations is an individual’s “free will” respected. Dalits, Muslims and women still remained at the periphery, while other castes/categories dominated the sphere of the market.Dalits are conventionally assumed to be poor, stuck with dead-end jobs, and lacking in what it takes to be an entrepreneur or a business leader. Given these assumptions, they are subject to multiple kinds of discrimination in society and in the market. In the Eleventh Five Year Plan, it was noticed that Scheduled Castes (SCs) are disproportionately represented, poorly paid and face particular discrimination in gaining employment in open market. In an India that seeks to be a leading globalised market economy, such crude identification of one particular group militates against the ideas that drive the neo-liberal economy.
In earlier decades, Dalits gained from the initiatives of the Nehruvian welfare-socialist agenda. However, in the last two decades of privatisation in the Indian economy, the benefits of reservation policy have bottomed out. The market tends to function under the aegis of traditionally dominant caste groups; nepotism, conventional networks and kinship still operate in Indian business. Dalits, are regarded as relative outsiders in the world of business, and the odds are stacked against them. However, despite these adverse circumstances, some Dalit entrepreneurs have demonstrated remarkable achievement in their individual business enterprises.
This new generation of successful Dalit entrepreneurs has opened a new debate. They locate the globalised market economy as the domain of free competition, and thus, beneficial to the educated Dalits. This endorsement is different from the standard Dalit positions that argue that the state should continue to be responsible in empowering Dalits. In the new discourse, reservation policy appears limited and is often perceived as a “compensatory package” by the state to provide status and position to “representative candidates” from among the deprived sections. It may provide a moral justification for the welfare state, but cunningly reduces Dalits into passive recipients. It appears as though the benevolent state is “giving” the profits to the needy, but not that these “deprived sections” genuinely deserve them as a matter of right. This approach may provide certain material benefits to socially deprived groups, but it does not challenge the core question of marginalisation that constricts their individuality, free will and capacity to perform in the economic domain. Such agendas of social justice do not look at the fundamental reasons for their deprivation.Thinking beyond reservations is the latest appeal of this emerging Dalit entrepreneur class. They look at the state as their moral partner in such endeavours and demand new safeguards, protections and benefits, which will help chart their entry in the economic arena. They ask for proactive affirmative action by the state to reduce the vulnerability of the Dalits in the market.
For the state, which has now adopted neo-liberal economic policies as a given, this is the real test. The aspirations and courage of this new class of Dalits is phenomenal, but they will remain a few scattered stories without the equal and determined support of the state. The state must also look beyond reservations, to promote these new entrants in the market economy.
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