Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

Traditional poverty indicators are not used to assess caste-based structural exclusion. We apply the Ambedkarite philosophy to decolonize development, which states that development has to be gauged by annihilation of caste and realisation of dignity rather than material deprivation.

Paper long abstract

Global Reimagination of Development requires a radical review of the methods of measuring human progress. This paper deals with the deep inefficiency of traditional measures of poverty, including the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which are systematically unable to explain the structural violence of caste. These measures are mainly used to measure shortages of materials, with the final result being unaware of the long-term processes and dynamics of power that reproduce graded inequality- this is a central idea in the works of Ambedkar.

We build heavily on the socio-economic philosophy of B. R. Ambedkar to shift the developmental agenda to poverty reduction to the task of attaining dignity and non-discrimination. We argue that emancipatory future needs to be conceptually redefined as the destruction of caste. The paper questions the prevailing economic gaze by stating that lack of social dignity and existence of systematic exclusion are the distinguishing characteristics of structural poverty in India using critical analysis. It is only through the measurement of these factors that real agency can be opened up and the policy directed toward resilient and just futures in an ever uncertain world.

Keywords: Ambedkarite, Graded Inequality, Poverty Metrics, Dignity, Decolonizing Development