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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the Self-help group programme in rural India and how it reproduces gender-caste-class-based marginalisation for the Scheduled-Caste women. Adopting the lenses of financialisation of social reproduction and caste capitalism, this study uses the state of West Bengal as case study.

Paper long abstract

Self-help groups (SHGs) for rural women in India are integral parts of development policies, including the distribution of welfare schemes, building financial discipline, lending microcredit, fostering community solidarity, and helping them find decent work. However, the reality on the ground for Scheduled Caste (SC) women in rural India is quite the contrary. SHGs have not only failed to provide welfare benefits and decent work to the SC women in rural India, but they have also led to their increased indebtedness and worsening of socio-economic conditions. SHGs and microfinance groups act as convenient sites for banks and Microfinance Institutions in India to extend financialized debt. This process is more pronounced for the groups of Scheduled Caste women due to their precarious employment, lack of other opportunities for upward mobility, burden of socially reproductive labour, and discrimination from the state. Additionally, by making membership of SHGs a compulsory condition for receiving welfare benefits, the state plays a central role in trapping SC women in SHGs and allowing finance capital to use these as sites of accumulation. Based on 41 interviews conducted across 7 districts in the state of West Bengal, India, of a diverse range of participants, including Scheduled Caste women, Scheduled Tribe women, General Caste women, and representatives from the finance sector, this study examines how the state and financialized debt in rural India works in alliance to reproduce caste-based marginalisation for SC women while facilitating financial accumulation; a process that is termed as caste capitalism.