Paper short abstract:

One of the strongest aspirations of Dalits across India to achieve economic independence by setting up their own micro-enterprises. Drawing on ethnography from rural Tamil Nadu, this paper explores why such entrepreneurial attempts tend to fail, often pushing Dalits back into debt bondage.

Paper long abstract:

While Dalits across India mobilise various political tools to challenge exploitation and discrimination, one of their strongest aspirations is to achieve economic independence by setting up their own small-scale production units. However, despite the promises of neoliberal opportunities, Dalit aspirations to escape relations of debt bondage and carve out spaces for independent entrepreneurship remain heavily undermined by a sheer lack of assets and other resources.

Based on ethnographic data from the rural hinterland of Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, we explore 3 strategies recently used by Dalits to escape dependency on higher castes in the rural powerloom industry. They include attempts 1) to run their own powerloom enterprises rather than to work as labourers for higher castes; 2) to escape forms of labour bondage by using microfinance to settle debts with powerloom employers; and 3) to take up garment work in Tiruppur, with the aim to escape powerloom work and village dependency altogether.

The paper describes these strategies and explains why each of them ended up being a mixed success, if not altogether a failure, often pushing Dalits further into debt or back into forms of labour bondage. Drawing on Berlant's concept of 'cruel optimism' (2011), the paper shows how Dalits' aspirations for a better life through micro-enterprises and independent labour backfire and why they end up being an obstacle to their flourishing rather than a means to achieving independence. We discuss the ways in which higher-caste recruitment strategies, ongoing technological transformations, and Dalits' precarious fall-back position undermine their entrepreneurial endeavours.