Paper short abstract:

This paper tries to address the question of caste discrimination in contemporary rural India by examining differences in a range of socio-economic variables between Dalit households and Other Caste households, based on more than 12 detailed village surveys, conducted between 2005 and 2010.

Paper long abstract:

Economists of contemporary India have not paid much attention to the persistence of caste discrimination in rural areas. In this paper, we supplement our understanding of rural classes by examining deprivation and discrimination on the basis of caste, in particular, among Scheduled Caste households.

Sukhdeo Thorat has argued that discrimination of Dalit households in rural India persists even in market-based transactions (Thorat 2010). Discrimination can be direct or active, such as when a Dalit family is prevented from buying land in a certain location. It can also be passive or indirect, as for example, if Dalit households are not preferred for tenancy contracts or unable to access banks for credit. Indirect discrimination is often not recognized as such and is attributed to other factors, such as low incomes.

This paper examines deprivation in respect of household incomes, ownership of land and other assets, and housing and basic amenities across households in 14 villages. We also examine the relation between household incomes and socio-economic class and observed deprivations in selected variables, as well as the role of public intervention in mitigating group deprivation. While broadly supporting Thorat's argument, the paper brings new information, such as on level and composition of incomes, to bear on the issue of indirect caste discrimination. To our knowledge, there is very limited empirical work on this question.

The analysis is based on household-level data from 14 villages that were surveyed between 2005 and 2010, by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.