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‘Agrarian question linked to Dalit discrimination' by V Sridhar

‘Linking the question to annihilation of caste is an important research agenda'

‘Dalits' position relative to dominant castes has not improved significantly'

Participants at a national seminar on ‘Dalit households in village economies,' which began here on Friday, affirmed that a lasting solution to India's “agrarian question” — characterised by extreme inequalities in the distribution of land — was inseparably linked to the widespread discrimination of Dalits.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day event, Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission, said the tradition of village studies in India had “a rich lineage and pedigree” which had “died down somewhat” during the 1980s and the 90s.

Surveys

Professor Sen said that about 50 such surveys conducted in the last seven to eight years, by adopting methodologies generally used by larger sample surveys conducted by official agencies, had enabled the testing and extrapolation of data.

These village surveys, unlike the sample surveys, enable researchers “to study the relationships among different social groups,” he said. “It is almost in the pedigree of village studies that they enable the study of caste relations in the field of agrarian studies.”

Introducing the theme, V.K. Ramachandran, Professor at the Sociological Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, said: “The objective is to study the specific ways in which the economic discrimination of Dalits — in market and non-market forms — happens.”

Forms of discrimination

He pointed out that the team of researchers, with whom he has been associated, has conducted more than 30 village surveys since the 1990s to study “direct discrimination” as well as forms of discrimination that cause differential impacts across social groups.

“Linking the agrarian question to the annihilation of caste is an important research agenda,” Professor Ramachandran said. “Rigorous micro-studies of the victims of sectional discrimination, relating to exclusion from land, employment, credit, and other inputs are needed.”

Referring to the contention in some quarters that since markets are “blind,” they may provide salvation to Dalits, Professor Ramachandran said: “Existing forms of discrimination reinforce relationships based on the market.”

Judith Heyer from Oxford University, who presented results from a series of surveys of villages near Coimbatore and Tirupur since the early 1980s, pointed out that although the material conditions of Dalits had improved their position relative to the dominant castes had not improved significantly.

V. Surjit, agricultural economist at the International Potato Centre, New Delhi, who presented a study of a village in tail-end Cauvery delta, said that although Dalits were able to gain access to land as tenants they were targets of discriminatory economic practices.