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__._,_.___How Dalits are placed in rural areas in India is a well known fact.Not only social, but based on economic, political and education parameters, one can say that they are not able to meet their basic needs such as food, water and clothing. They only have physical strength and even if they have any skill set , the caste system has made them appear in a stereotype image. Thus they may be earning their livelihood but their self-esteem gets discounted in the process. There seems to be no hpe in offing for them. For farmers, agriculture is the source of livelihood but size of average landholding is getting reduced and cost of farm inputs is increasing making this option unviable.
They don't have the desired skill set to exploit new job opportunities. They have to resort to manual labour in the unorganized sector where there is great deal of uncertainty. Thus the future for coming generations of dalit appear bleak.
The situation is more or less same in both cities as well as villages. Urbanisation has been forced on dalits as they have to migrate to cities for work with no opportunities available in villages. Due to average size of land holding in rural areas being on decline, dalit familiessupplement their megare farm income with manual labour in cities or on other farms.In cities dalit men migrated from rural areas mainly work as construction workers while women and children get to to household work for others.
In between the families get back to village for farming. Thus there is no place for education and no time to give a thought to betterment of life for them . This indicates the challenges facing their future generations.
Here we would try to analyse the situation on the basis of data from Census 2001.
Status of Scheduled Castes(state wise) on the basis of Census 2001
State
Total population
Total workerú
Number of farmers
Percentage of farmer's number
Number of farm workers
Percentage of farm workers
Other domestic servants and industrial labour
Their percentage
Andhra Pradesh
12]339]496
6]233]518
606]761
10
4]258]259
68
1]368]498
22
Bihar
13]048]608
5]185]835
411]995
8
4]024]880
78
748]960
14
Chattisgarh
2]418]722
1]036]889
337]772
33
430]885
42
267]894
26
Delhi
2]343]255
709]792
2]079
0
4]582
1
703]131
99
Jharkhand
3]189]320
1]200]072
231]692
19
565]212
47
403]168
34
Madhya Pradesh
9]155]177
3]947]504
1]065]360
27
1]678]572
43
1]010]072
26
Maharashtra
9]881]656
4]141]193
533]454
13
1]908]382
46
1]699]357
41
Orissa
6]082]063
2]392]067
434]659
18
1]092]224
46
865]184
36
Rajasthan
9]694]462
4]036]120
1]769]656
44
437]499
11
1]431]165
35
Uttarakhand
1]517]186
569]304
268]906
47
87]053
15
213]345
37
From the above table it is clear that agriculture has been the main source of employment in rural areas. It must be noted that only 10 per cent of the farmers own land. The others have been kept in cateogory of farm labour.In a city like Delhi, considered to be land of opportunities, employment opportunities are few for dalits, as 99 per cent them work as domestic or industrial labour and only one per cent have the power to decide their own fate.
Population and Farm labour
(in million)
year
Total population
Rural population
Number of farmers
No. of farm workers
Total
1951
361-1
298-6
¼82-7½
69-9
¼71-9½
27-3
¼28-1½
97-2
¼100-0½
1961
439-2
360-3
¼82-0½
99-6
¼76-0½
31.5
¼24-0½
131-1
¼100-0½
1971
548-2
439-0
¼80-1½
78-2
¼62-2½
47-5
¼37-8½
125-7
¼100-0½
1981
683-3
523-9
¼76-7½
92-5
¼62-5½
55-5
¼37-5½
148-0
¼100-0½
1991
846-4
628-9
¼74-3½
110-7
¼59-7½
74-6
¼40-3½
185-3
¼100-0½
2001
1028-7
742-6
¼72-2½
127-3
¼54-4½
106-8
¼45-6½
234-1
¼100-0½
Source: NSO situation assessment survey of farmers
We can see in the above table that in the last six decades the proportion of farmers is coming down and per centage of farrm labour is going up. In 1951, 71.9 farmers had their own land while 27.1 per cent were farm workers, in 2001, the per centage for the same was 54.4 and 45.6 respectively.Though there is no separate category of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes mentioned in the above data but one can easily guess what would be their share in this data.
In this situation we would have to think about the real challenges facing the dalit movement. Is it going to focus only on the issue of identity or it would raise issues related to harsher ground realties.The unorganized sector is fast emerging as the easiest source of cheap labour all around the world. Now is the time when dalit movement should develop a synergy with the potent political forces in this sector.
SAFDARc/o AlokaH.B.Road Tharpakhan Ranchi 01Jharkhand
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