PRIVATISATION AND DALITS 
General Secretary, Dr. Ambedkar
mission society, Bedford
For the last 50 years, Indian economy has swung like a pendulum back and
forth between liberalization and socialism due to numerous politico-economic
and social pressures. Under enormous pressure of debts, deficits, IMF and
globalization, India
has embraced market economy. Hence in the last decade multinationals
corporations have invested in India
and thereby Indiahas
gradually come under global influence. The means of production,
corporate governance, labour and corporate practices are changing as
more organizations
are delivering to their stakeholders a good healthy dividend.
With the collapse of communism, the western countries projected globalization
as an alternative to centralized bureaucratic control and state dominated
economies. Globalisation is supposedly to bring greater prosperity, peace,
ecological balance and reduction in poverty. Instead of gaining public
trust and democratic accountability, globalization has led to widening the gap
between rich and poor. The minorities like Dalits have become more
marginalized. Globalisation has enriched the upper castes that have taken
advantage due to relevant skills and access to education whilst Dalits have become
impoverished. Globalisation has led to disillusionment and discontentment.
SC/STs have found their livelihood destroyed. Whilst corporate sector has
created jobs in India
With the introduction of privatisation, liberalisation, globalisation and
disinvestments, many government industries and public sector undertakings have
already been sold off. As a result, thousands of jobs in the public sector have
been lost. It is reported that in the Central Secretariat in Delhi,
60,000 posts particularly at lower levels have been abolished during the year
2003-4 and about 200,000 jobs all around country have been erased (1). Even the
cleaning jobs in the local municipal committees have been contracted out to the
contractors. The permanent jobs have been converted into temporary and the
workers are left on the mercy of contractors.
but the main beneficiaries have been the upper castes. 'Globalisation has clearly
made wealthy elite wealthier. It has increased greed of the elite and strong
desire to hang on to power. Time has come to devise a new strategy to make
Dalits partners in the corporate sector. Failure will only result in further
widening of gap between rich and poor.
According to the Economic Survey 1999-2000, employment in public sector by
industry is 1941 crores (19410 millions), which means that by a rough estimate,
there are more than 40 lakhs (4 millions) SC/ST employees. In the government
and public sector, especially banks, SC/ST employees are actually less than the
prescribed 15% reservation. The percentage of SCs in group A and B services
stands at 10.15 and 12.57 percent respectively. In public sector banks in the
officers’ cadre, the representation of SCs was 11.11% (2). Freed from their
obligation to fulfil mandated quotas, privatised Public Sector Undertakings and
banks are bound to register fall in the relative strength of Dalits. And even
if their jobs are as secure or insecure as any other employee in a privatise
firm is, the company can selectively lay of SC/ST staff without fear of violating
any reservation policy. Again the promotion prospects of these employees will
be diminished. Privatisation will lead to erosion and ultimately the end of
reservation in the public sector. There is no clause for reservation being
added into the disinvestment deals struck between the government and the
private sector. Not to insert such clause into these deals is to subvert
caste-based reservation and keep the Dalits away from jobs and also transfer
the national assets in the hands of high castes.
It doesn’t matter how much we oppose globalisation and privatisation, it is
going to stay in future and we will have to live with it. We have to change our
strategy and adapt ourselves accordingly. We must find ways and means to absorb
our Dalit brothers and sisters into these MNCs (multinational Corporations).
Business is facing challenging time worldwide. It is no longer enough to simply
employ people make profit and pay taxes. Companies are now expected to act
responsibly, be accountable and benefit society as a whole. Corporate social
responsibility may sound new to the underdeveloped countries but it is an old
concept in Western World. The business has responsibility to itself, to its
customers, workers, shareholders and community as whole.
The growth of the global economy has seen benefits across the World but also
increasing public concern about business activities and decline in trust. At
the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg
in September 2002, there was as much focus on business as on poverty and the
environment. As WSSD recognised, partnership between business, government and
civil society, there is a need to tackle inequalities and deprivation across
the country. The business must be encouraged to tackle social exclusion and racism
based on descent and build stronger society (3).
The multinational Companies (MNCs) have also started realising that how a
company’s response to local needs results into a tremendous impact on its
business and public perception of the company. Due to rapid expansion of
consumerism, consumer is also becoming increasingly aware and is constantly
evaluating company’s products and performance through human rights context. The
companies are beginning to listen to the people for their local needs to
maintain their reputation. Realising their corporate responsibility and
integrity, the multinationals have started promoting diversity through
education, training and minority advancement programmes.
In the UK,
food supply provides some good example of corporate social responsibility. The
Fair Trade group aims to give better deal to Third World
producers. More than 300 retail products, ranging from coffee to fresh fruits,
carry the fair trade mark in the UK.
Leading super markets such as the Coop and Tesco, either stock Fairtrade brands
or ensure their own brands are sourced from Fairtrade producers. Equal
opportunity policy is enforced very strictly (4). To win the confidence of
black and ethnic minorities, British police have started recruiting their staff
from these groups and from the last few years a number of police officers are
seen on the streets. Similarly BBC and other broadcasting companies started
recruiting newsreaders, presenters and actors from black and ethnic
minorities. Any company, which doesn’t employ people from blacks and
ethnic minorities, is considered as a racist and no company whether big or
small wants this sort of stigma attached to it.
In USA,
American Society of Newspaper Editors took a decision in 1978 to raise the
minorities’ representations from a pathetic 3.95% to the same level as their
share in the population. The papers started special programmes such as
scholarships, ethnic and racial censuses, training schemes and job fairs to
recruit historically disadvantage minority groups. Today two thirds of all
newspapers with circulation 100,000 plus draw 15-20% of their journalists from
racial linguistics minorities like blacks and Hispanics. Thus, 16.2% of the New
York Times, 19.5% of Washington Post, 18.7% of Los Angeles Times and 17.1% of
Wall Street Journal’s staff belong to such minorities (5). Similarly Ford Motor
Company largely focuses on recruiting the best of minorities, training and
teaching them the best of techniques through exhaustive dealer education
programmes in order to ensure the best of minorities have the capability to
compete nationally as well globally. The company also grants scholarships to
the students to get involved with the company. In 1999, Ford Motor Company
prides itself for purchasing record $3.3 billions in goods and services from
business that are run by the minorities. IBM has 15% of its staff drawn from
the minorities. Over third of the faculty of Harvard
Medical School
belongs to such group. Microsoft and McDonald’s have made diversity an
essential part of their business identity (6).
By contrast, Dalits and Adivasis (23% 0f the population) have abysmally low
representation: just 7.1% in factories, 3.1% in construction, 4.1% in trade, 3%
in transport and 3.4% in domestic industry(7). It is clear that the Indian
business doesn’t give any importance to corporate responsibility and lack the
spirit of diversity. Here Dalit is presumed useless, unworthy, incompetent,
unintelligent, unmeritorious and unsuitable, until proven otherwise. That is
why he doesn’t find any place in the business, educational institutions and
media. In his article, ‘In Search of a Dalit Journalist’, Mr. B.N. Unigal
states that there is not a single Dalit journalist in the English language
press from the population of well over 250 million Dalits (8). Mr. Chandra Bhan
Prasad, a Dalit writer is right when he says “In the US you have black
billionaires, industrialists, black film stars, black professors. In India,
university professorships are closed to us. We don’t have one millionaire. There
is neither one Dalit newspaper editor nor a newscaster.”(9). The caste
intelligentsia, which controls media and public institutions, doesn’t find it
necessary to examine the reasons for not given due representations to these
people. Perhaps they think that the law of ‘Karma’ governs them. They are in
privileged positions because of their past deeds (Karmas). So they cannot do
anything to change the lives of Dalits as they are suffering because of their
past deeds as well.
Dalit educated elite is beginning to feel the heat of privatisation. They
know that with this new phenomenon, the Dalits will have no place in the market
economy. To find a new strategy to overcome this situation, in January 2002, a
Dalit conference was held in Bhopal.
Over 300 Dalit intellectuals unanimously accepted the Bhopal Declaration
containing 21 points identifying the area of intervention for uplifment of
Scheduled Castes/Tribes and their participation in the public and private
sector. On 26th January
2002, in his Republic Day address to the nation, the then President
of India, Mr.
K.R. Narayanan endorsed this declaration, which generated a serious debate
throughout the country. The concept of diversity came into forefront for the
first time. The main theme of the Bhopal Declaration is that there must be an
equal participation of all sections of the society in the activities of all key
institutions be it governance, education, institutions and trade. Every
government and private organisation must implement Supplier Diversity from socially
disadvantaged businesses and Dealership Diversity in all goods and services.
The reservation must be compulsory in the private and corporate sector in the
same proportion as in the public sector and in the government institutions and
develop the capacities and skills of Dalits to help them cope up with the
demands of these different sectors.
To further these objectives, another International Dalit Conference took
place in Vancouver, Canada
on 16-18 May 2003. Endorsing the Bhopal Declaration, the Conference asked for
rightful and proportionate share of Dalits in India’s
national institutions, wealth and capital. The community should have equitable
access to means of production and economic empowerment.
Though the Congress Party accepted the Bhopal Declaration and the
reservations to Dalits in the private sector was given prominence in the
minimum common programme of United Progressive Alliance (UPA), but so far they
haven’t done anything to fulfil their promise. It appears that the Congress
Party has deliberately diverted people’s attention from Bhopal
and Vancouver Declarations. They are talking of labour market reservations and
employment in certain sector of the private economy. There is no discussion
over capital market, land market and government contracts to the Dalits. They
have taken up just a one issue for reservations but what about
contract/suppliers/dealership diversity? What about giving surplus land to
landless labourers? What about diversity into educational institutions?
Even reservation in the private sector hasn’t received a positive response
from businesses. The UPA government’s common minimum programme talks about
evolving a consensus on the issue. The Prime Minister had meeting with
industrialists on 4th
December 2004 in which this issue was raised. All of them were
opposed to this idea and only agreed to contribute toward education. Recently
Rahul Bajaj threatened to shift business out of Maharashtra
if the state government did not rescind its orders on reservations in the
private sector (Times of India,
8/9/04). Confederation of
Indian Industry chief Mr. Anand Mahindra welcomes a dialogue but says that
reservation without merit may have distorting effects on the industry. In
another word, he is parroting again about the age-old excuse of merit.
Everybody knows that in private sector, jobs are hardly advertised. The people
are recruited on the basis of birth not worth, family lineage, contacts,
recommendations, loyalty and political influence. The Indian industry is run
and controlled by the upper caste feudals who have no compassion for the
poor.
The issue of providing reservation to the Dalits in the private sector seems
to have taken a backseat. During Maharashtra elections,
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh raised the issue. This matter was widely
responded and discussed. The Government formed a Group of Ministers on the
subject under the chairmanship of Sharad Pawar with Ramvilas Paswan and Lalu
Prasad Yadav its members. Now the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh
constituted a committee of ministers on Dalit affairs to supervise programmes
being run by various ministries and departments for welfare of Dalits. The
committee would consolidate the funding and implementation of schemes to
improve effectiveness and identify areas needing attention. The committee has
been set up because despite a large amounts being allocated to a number of
programmes, the outcome has not been fruitful (10).
Now the government has itself admitted that the welfare programmes have not
been very affective and successful. If the Prime Minister is really sincere,
instead of this ministerial committee, he should form a Diversity Cell in the
Prime Minister’s office and start implementing diversity programme immediately.
All the contracts to various companies should go through the Prime Minister
making sure that Dalits get their fare share in contracts. Rather than spending
money on welfare schemes, involve them in businesses so that they are able to
look after themselves. The Government should also set up a separate ministry
for Diversification independent from the Ministry of Welfare and
Empowerment. The Digvijay Singh government in Madhya Pardesh initiated a
scheme to award one third of all purchases/contracts to the Dalits. The
central government should also start such programmes at least in central
government departments. All the governmental and private sector enterprises
must provide data to the ministry to make sure that Dalits are given an equal
opportunity in the hiring process. It also means that governmental and private
business contracts should be cleared through the Ministry of Diversification to
make sure that Dalits have shares equal to others (11). It is said that charity
begins from home. The government should show the way to the private businesses.
Rather than giving them reservation, give them power to run their own
businesses. It will benefit not only a few educated people also semi literate
people as well resulting more employment amongst the weaker section of
society. This new ministry must set targets to achieve diversity
agenda. This includes employment of Dalits in government and private
sector and all educational institutions.
The ministry should also bear responsibility of training and teaching Dalits
the best of techniques
Through exhaustive dealer/supplier-educational programmes in order to ensure
that Dalits have the capability to compete nationally and globally. Dalit
students should also be encouraged and financed to get involved in the
business. All the private businesses, which are refusing to implement diversity
programme, should be liable to be barred from government concessions such as
subsidies, grants, loans and other income tax benefits. The companies, which
implement this programme, should be benefited with tax rebates and other
incentives.
To implement the diversity programme, it is essential that we have some data
of the Dalit professionals, suppliers, dealers etc., otherwise these companies
can easily say that they are unable to find the suitable persons. To eradicate
this problem, there must be some sort of Dalit Recruitment Agency with branches
in every state, which will collect the data of Dalit professionals i.e.
scientists, computer engineers, lawyers, doctors, suppliers, dealers etc. The
recruiting public/ private company or government departments would write to the
Dalit Agency for providing the potential job seeker, supplier or dealer with
relevant business and qualifications. If we have data, the agency can write to
eligible persons. The person who gets job or contract for supply or dealership
through the Dalit agency will have to pay a small amount to agency so that its
running costs are met. Initially it will be difficult to collect data but when
the agency start working, the potential job seekers or contractors will be
registering their names themselves with the Dalit Agency. That way the
companies can’t make excuse that they can’t find suitable persons for the jobs
and also we will be able to have network of Dalit professionals and
businessmen. This Agency can be run easily with no profit and no loss basis.
The government can also take an initiative to open such agency under the
Ministry of Diversification. But it must be ensured that this agency be run and
operated by Dalit officials only. This agency must publish its annual report to
show how many people registered with the company and how many people got jobs
through this agency. Dalit Beopar mandal is a positive sign to implement this
programme. We don’t need talks and dialogues with any business tycoons but we need
action. Now let us see how far the government goes to empower Dalits.
References:
(1) P. Vishnumurti, Janamitra, 4/01/04
(2) Disinvestment will end reservations An article by Rajesh Ramachandran and Akshaya Mukul, the Times of India News
Desk, published in the souvenir on Dr. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary in 2002
from Jallandhar.
(3) Corporate Social Responsibility A British Government update published by the Department of Trade &
Industry in May 2004
(4) Corporate Social Responsibility Friends, (a magazine for the members of the Communications Workers Friendly
Society) Autumn 2004 issue.
(5) The Praful Bidwai Column, dated 21/8/2004
HYPERLINK http://countercurrents.org/dalit-bidwai210804.htm
(6) The Vancouver Vision on
Diversity International Dalit Conference, Vancouver, 2003
(7) Mr. P. Vishnumurti, Janmitra, 4/01/2004
(8) The Pioneer, Dalit Diary (Vol-1) by Chandra Bhan Prasad
(9) The Observer, 3 October 2004).
(10) The Indian Express, 8 March
2005
(11) Dr. K. P. Singh,
What Dalits Expect from the congress led Government? Dalit International Newsletter, October 2004
Note: This article on
Privatisation & Dalits was written by Mr. Arun Kumar a year ago.
POSTED ON JUNE 11, 2007
=============================================================================
EMPOWERMENT OF DALITS
Arun Kumar
Secretary, Dr. Ambedkar Mission Society, Bedford, UK
Dr. Ambedkar is by far the greatest figure
ever born to the Dalit community. He has become a household name in every nook
and corner of India. His influence and prestige continue to grow everyday. Today he is
recognised as a great figure of modern India.
The statues of Dr. Ambedkar are erected just about everywhere, thousands of
walls are decorated with his portraits and his writings are quoted in most of
the speeches delivered by prominent politicians and scholars. All political
parties include him among figures of national importance.
Dr. Ambedkar is being transformed into a
saintly figure. On his birthdays, politicians and his followers garland his
statues and portraits. The politician use beautiful words in praise of Dr.
Ambedkar to please his followers and to keep their vote bank intact. They
announce various schemes which are never implemented and most of the time they
gather dust in the office files. To celebrate his birthday is becoming an
annual ritual. But he himself was an ‘idle breaker’ not ‘idle worshiper’. He
was also against hero worship. Commenting upon hero worship, he said, “Bhakti
in religion may be road to salvation of the soul. But in politics, it is sure
road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship” (1). Let us not put Dr.
Ambedkar on a pedestal and start worshiping him.
Dr. Ambedkar’s life should provide an
example as well as an inspiration to all those who constitute the have-nots and
downtrodden in the World and tell them
that no bar based on caste, colour, race or religion can come in the way of an
individual who is determined to go up. He believed in action and used every
opportunity, every talent and every minute that was available to him to
accomplish his ideals. His life was a relentless struggle against injustice and
oppression. His birthday is a reminder to us about his sacrifice to improve the
conditions of neglected and suppressed people of India. He
is as much relevant today as he was in his own life time.
His each and every word will keep on
imparting guidance not only to Dalits but to all Indians. While presenting the draft constitution in
the Constituent Assembly on 25th November, 1949,
Dr. Ambedkar warned the nation, “On January 26, 1950,
we will have equality in politics and inequality in social and economic life.
We must remove this contradiction at the earliest moment, or else those who
suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy…” (2).
Even
after more than half century of Independence, we haven’t learnt any lesson. Socially Indians are still divided
into low and high. Loyalty to caste has increased. Dalits are discriminated on
the basis of their caste. The situation is worsening day by day. According to a
report by the Human Rights Watch some 160 million people live in a precarious
existence shunned by much of society because of their ranks as untouchables.
Dalits are discriminated, against, denied access to land, forced to work in
deploring conditions and routinely abused and even killed. Dalit women are
frequently victim of sexual abuse and paraded naked in the streets for petty
crimes. Between 1994 and 1996, 98349 cases were registered with police
nationwide as crimes and atrocities against Dalits. A further 1660 were for
murder, 2814 for rape and 13671 for grievous hurt (3). The National Crime
Records Bureau of India in its report says that 23742were committed against
Dalits in the year 2000. Of these 6617 were atrocities and 666 were denial of
civil rights. There were 3,298 cases of attack, 1034 cases of rape, 486 of
murder, 260 of arson, 242 of kidnapping and abduction and 93 of robbery. Every
day the incidents of atrocities can be found in various newspapers. But what the
Indian are doing about it. Just flick
the newspapers, feel sorry for the unfortunates and forget.
It is often boasted that the government of India and
state governments have started numerous schemes to uplift the conditions of
Dalits. But in actual fact the state as well as central government don’t take
any interest to implement these plans. For example, the union government
provided Rs.50lacs to help the victims of caste oppression but Punjab government didn’t spent
a penny out of this fund. Again an amount of Rs.54crores and 34lacs was
sanctioned in the budget for year 2003-4, out which only Rs.35crores and 6lacs
were spent. Similarly the communist government in West Bengal spent only 40% of
the amount given by the central government (4). During 1980, the schemes started
for the welfare Dalits have either been finished or the budget provision for
these plans has been reduced to the extent that they are not benefiting to
anybody. Provision of Rs.16crores to provide hostels to the students of
Scheduled Tribes by the Government of India has ceased during the budget of
2004-5. A provision of Rs.40crores was made during year 2003-4 for the welfare
and rehabilitation of manual scavengers, but during the year 2004-5, the amount
was reduced to Rs.20crores (5)
So far economic conditions are concerned;
reservation in the government jobs has not been fulfilled as proportional to
their population. With the privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation, the
government jobs are disappearing. A rough estimation
shows that for every 10 Dalits retiring from Government, only two are getting
in. At this rate 80 per cent of the Dalits will have been thrown out of the
Government jobs by 2033 (6). As there is no
reservation in the private sector, there is no scope of Dalits getting jobs in
the private sector. There are 250 millions Dalits in India
which make nearly one fourth of all population. But their share in the market
economy is negligible. Dalits in Punjab constitute a higher proportion of the population
(28.3%) than the India average; they cultivate only 0.4% of all landholdings,
occupying 0.72% of the total cultivated area in the state (7).They have 7.1%
share in factories, 3.1% in construction, 4.1% in trade, 3% in transport and
3.4% in domestic industry (8).That is why majority of Dalits still live below
poverty line. The current trend is that poor is becoming poorer and rich richer.
Dalits will be further marginalised.
Because of the disparity between rich and
poor, people especially Dalits are getting frustrated and alienated from the
rest of the society. They have stopped believing the politicians and democratic
system. That is why violent movements such as Dalit Panthers of India, Naxlite
movement in Andhra Parades, Maoist movement in Bihar and Jharkhand are cropping
up. If the gap between rich and poor is not bridged, there is a danger of caste
warfare. The Indians must heed Dr. Ambedkar’s warning and do something to bring
about equality in social and economic life of the people. Otherwise India
will surely be heading towards disaster.
After Bhopal and
Vancouver Dalit Conferences, the issue of reservation in the private sector has
become a national agenda. By starting debate on reservations in private sector,
Congress government has deliberately diverted the people’s attention from the
recommendations of both Bhopal and Vancouver Declarations. Recently the working group set up by
the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh has given its verdict that reservation
in the private sector without constitutional amendment is not possible. This
issue has been sidelined. There are 121 Dalit MPs. If all reserved MPs and MLAs
cooperate with each other, the government of India
will be forced to bring this amendment in the Parliament. But they have become
deaf and dumb to please their masters. They are concerned only about their own
positions.
We should not be contended with mere
reservation in private sector but we must also push for the implementation of
supplier and dealership diversity in all goods and services for socially
disadvantaged businesses. We must not stop until our goal of share in land,
trade, industry and market is achieved. To bring social and economic equality
in the society, empowerment of Dalits is essential. If we are able to achieve
even a little in this direction, it will be a real tribute to Dr. Ambedkar.
References:
1. Thus Spoke
Ambedkar Vol. II, Bhagwan Das.
2. Ibid
3. Broken People,
Caste Violence against India’s “Untouchables”, Human Rights Watch, New York
4. Nanak Chand
Rattu, Dr. Ambedkar’s Last Days and his last words, An article published in the Ambedkar
Centenary Celebrations souvenir Vol 11, Published by the Ambedkar Centenary
Celebrations Committee,
UK
5. Bheem Patrika,
September, 2004
6. Weekly Begum
Pura Shaher, 5th September, 2005
7. Chander Bhan
Prasad, Step Backward, The Pioneer, 6/11/05
8. Dr. Ronki Ram,
Untouchability in India with a difference, Asian survey, November/December 04
9. Vishnumuriti, Janmitra, dated 4
January, 2004
POSTED ON JUNE 9TH, 2007
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