Higher marginalization of Gujarat Dalit rural households compared to other sections

The National Sample Survey Organization’s (NSSO’s) report, “Key Indicators of Situation of Agricultural Households in India”, released in December 2014, has indicated that there is much incidence of marginalization of the scheduled caste (SC) households in rural Gujarat in comparison to other social groups – scheduled tribes (STs), other backward classes (OBCs), and those falling under the “Others” category. The data put out by the NSSO show that there are in all 4,55,300 SC households in Gujarat, out of which 1,52,700, or 33.54 per cent, are involved agricultural activities.
This is compared to 66.9 per cent of out of a total 58,71,900 Gujarat all rural households involved in agricultural activities. A social category-wise breakup, interestingly, reveals that there are 68.07 per cent of 28,73,800 OBC households and 71.15 per cent of 14,48,000 ST households who are involved in agriculture. As for whose falling in the “Others” category, mainly upper castes, there are 72.3 per cent agricultural households out of a total of 10,94,800 rural households in this category.

Providing a complex definition of agricultural households, the NSSO includes in it those which own land, and also those carry out “significant agricultural activities” even if they do not possess land. Thus, to be categorized as agricultural households, they must be involved in cultivation of field crops, horticultural crops, fodder crops, plantation, animal husbandry, poultry, fishery, piggery, bee-keeping, vermiculture, sericulture etc., with “at least one member self-employed in agriculture either in the principal status or in subsidiary status during last 365 days”, says the NSSO.
Then, the agricultural households should be reasonably better off than other sections of rural households: They should have an average Monthly Household Consumer Expenditure (MHCE) of Rs 3,000 or more for home grown consumption of some “specific items”. Importantly, agricultural wage earners, rural artisans and those providing different services in rural areas are not included in the category of “agricultural households”.

Significantly, the all-India average of rural SC households involved in agricultural activities is much higher than that of Gujarat – it is 46.58 per cent of the total rural SC households (3,14,89,800) in India. Equally shocking is the fact that the proportion of rural SC households involved in agricultural activity is higher in 17 other states, including the so-called backward states like Bihar (41.49 per cent), Chhattigarh (82.69 per cent), Jharkhand (50.26 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (49.15 per cent), Rajasthan (64.74 per cent), and Uttar Pradesh (37.9 per cent).
In all, Gujarat has 58,71,900 rural households (ST, SC, OBC and Others), out of which 4,55,300 (7.75 per cent) are SC households. This is against 20.17 per cent rural SC households out of a total of 15,61,44,200 rural households in the country as a whole. In Gujarat, STs form 26.66 per cent of rural households, OBCs – who are the largest chunk – form 48.94 per cent of rural households, and Others form 18.64 per cent of rural households.

While there is no separate analysis about the type of activities the SCs may be involved in, in the rural areas, even among agricultural households, the NSSO suggests, there appears to be considerable marginalization in Guajrat. Thus, 26.7 per cent of the agriculture households – apart from continuing their activities defined by NSSO as “agricultural” – earn their living from wages. This is much higher than the all-India average of 22 per cent.
At the same time, the NSSO report says that there are in all 12.9 per cent of the agricultural households – compared to the all-India average of 6.7 per cent – which do not own land other than that for homestead. Then, there are 86.4 per cent of the households which possess both homestead and other land compared to all-India average of 92.6 per cent of agricultural households.
Further, the NSSO report says that there are just 29.3 per cent of the agricultural households which have National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) cards compared to 44.4 per cent agricultural households in the country as a whole. Then, there are 2.6 per of agricultural households who have Antyodaya cards, 34 per cent of them have below poverty line (BPL) cards, 61.6 per cent of them haves above poverty line ration cards, and 1.8 per cent of them have no cards.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog