Читать книгу India - Craig Jeffrey - Страница 32

We drew attention earlier to the findings from recent research that higher levels of education, urban residence, being engaged in wage work, and belonging to social groups other than Dalit, adivasi or OBC are positively associated with higher-than-average chances of upward mobility. These observations point to the significance in India of what the social historian Charles Tilly (1998) refers to as ‘durable inequalities’ – inequalities, that is, across groups of people defined by relatively rigid social discriminators. This is the case, without question, of distinctions relating to caste, tribe and religion.

The economist K. P. Kannan was a member of the National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), appointed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, in 2004, to examine problems faced by the unorganized, or informal sector of the economy, and by the 92 per cent of Indian workers who are informally employed. The Commission distinguished different groups in regard to poverty: (a) the ‘poor and marginally poor’, comparable with those distinguished by the $1.25 per capita per day international poverty line of the World Bank; (b) the ‘poor and vulnerable’, comparable with the international poverty line of $2 per capita per day; and (c) those who are not poor, classified as ‘middle and high income’. Kannan (2018) presents data on the incidence of poverty in terms of these three groups, and across social categories, showing that in every poverty group the highest incidence of poverty is among Dalits and adivasis, followed by Muslims, then OBCs, and finally Others (see table 3.1).

Table 3.1 Percentage Distribution of Population by Poverty Status and Social Groups, 2004–05 and 2009–10

SOURCES: NCEUS (2007) for 2004–05; computed from unit level data from National Sample Survey 61st Round. Reproduced from Kannan 2018, table 2.1

Evidence presented by other scholars shows up big differences also between Dalits and adivasis. Radhakrishna (2015) offers the data presented in table 3.2.

The slower rate of decline among Scheduled Tribes (ST) by comparison with others, shown in Radhakrishna’s data, is to be matched with Alkire and Seth’s finding, referred to above, that the MPI declined least among STs between 1999 and 2006. Kannan’s calculations (2018: 35–8) of the rate of reduction of poverty across groups shows that between 1999–2000 and 2004–05 it was lowest among Dalits/adivasis and Muslims. In the ‘poor and marginal’ category, they did somewhat better than ‘others’ in the period 2004–05 to 2009–10, and about the same as the OBCs; but they did less well again in the ‘poor and vulnerable’ category, in comparison with OBCs and ‘others’, over this second period. Among Dalits and adivasis, 82 per cent were still ‘poor and vulnerable in 2009–10, after those years of ‘superfast growth’. ‘Inclusive growth’ really hasn’t happened.

Table 3.2 Incidence of Poverty and the Rate of Decline During 1993–94 to 2010–11, Rural and Urban, All-India

SOURCE: Radhakrishna (2015)

Kannan’s conclusion, ‘It is clear that the burden of poverty is concentrated among the socially disadvantaged groups – Dalits/Adivasis and Muslims – to a very significant degree’ (2018: 35), is unquestionably correct, and reflects ‘durable inequalities’. These are illuminated by the ethnographic research, in five sites, spread across India, reported by Alpa Shah, Jens Lerche and their co-workers in the book Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste and Inequality in Twenty-First Century India (2018). The anthropologists found that the casual labour supplied especially by Dalits and adivasis, some of it by Dalits and adivasis from eastern India who have travelled across the country for work, is a significant factor in the processes of accumulation that are going on. Shah and Lerche argue that ‘the entrenchment of social difference in the expansion of capitalism takes place through at least three inter-related processes: inherited inequalities of power; super-exploitation based on casual migrant labour; and conjugated oppression (that is the intertwined multiple oppressions based on caste, tribe, class, gender, and region)’ (Shah and Lerche 2018: 2, emphasis in the original). Here they are referring to inequalities of power between people that are inherited from local caste hierarchies and from historic class differences related to landholding and occupations in the rural economy; to the kind of exploitation of migrant casual labour that is richly documented in their ethnographies, and that sees employers using a range of tactics to ensure that labour remains insecure and dependent; and to the ways in which ideologies of caste and patriarchy intersect with class exploitation to produce oppression. These three processes produce durable inequality (and see chapter 11).

The significance of these enduring inequalities, grounded in rigid social discrimination – that is to be equated with racism – is shown up, as well, in research on social and economic mobility in India. Between 2009 and 2012, Anirudh Krishna and a team of researchers interviewed more than 2,000 people who had gained admission to one of five engineering colleges, or eight business schools, or to one of three different classes of government employees. He was interested in the social backgrounds of those who are able to gain admission to the kinds of institutions from which it is possible to enter into the most sought-after careers. One conclusion was outstanding: people brought up in rural areas are at severe disadvantage in gaining entry. The chances of gaining admission for individuals who are poor, rural, Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe (75 per cent of whom in the case of SCs and more than 90 per cent in the case of STs are rural, according to any definition), and who are women, are virtually zero (although women from relatively privileged urban backgrounds are now doing quite well). Very few SCs and STs are able to gain entry, and the numbers of Muslims are less than half, in proportion to their share in the population of India. The parents of new entrants to these prestigious institutions tend to be highly educated themselves, and in professional positions. More than 90 per cent had fathers with college degrees and mothers with at least high school education – when, in 2005 (according to data from the India Human Development Survey), in only 7 per cent of rural and 15 per cent of urban households did both fathers and mothers have at least high school education. In all societies, elites tend to reproduce themselves, but the tendency is particularly marked in India, and the odds of entry to the top-ranked educational institutions are stacked very heavily against those from social groups that have historically been discriminated against.

More generally, research in India shows a high level of intergenerational continuity in occupation type and income category. Drawing on data from the Indian Human Development Survey of 2011–12, Iversen et al. (2017) find the probability of any large inter-generational ascents to be very low, and there is no clear evidence of improving mobility over time. India also compares unfavourably with China, these researchers find, as regards mobility. There is a higher degree of social mobility among urban residents, and there are especially high risks of downward mobility among people living in rural areas. There is notably low mobility among Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and a particular risk of downward mobility for the sons of SC and ST professionals. Studies both of the difficulties of access for Dalits into good jobs, and of the particular constraints on Dalit entrepreneurship, very clearly show up the significance of the durable inequalities from which they suffer (Harriss-White et al. 2014; Thorat and Newman 2010).

Krishna’s studies, with others, of both poverty dynamics and the severe limits on socio-economic mobility in contemporary India, draw attention to the significance of the failure of the Indian economy, in spite of high rates of growth, to create very many employment opportunities. This is a problem that was very clearly recognized by Narendra Modi in the course of his campaign for election as prime minister in 2014, and his promises to create more opportunities accounted for at least some of the support that he garnered among younger people. Modi promised to create 250 million jobs in a decade – but the first year of his tenure, 2015, saw the fewest jobs created since 2008. It is a salutary fact, on which we will comment further in the next chapter, that the economy, during Modi’s term as prime minister in 2014–19, signally failed to generate more productive employment. But the constraints on mobility also have to do with failures on what Krishna refers to as ‘the preparation side’ – especially the problem of unequal and low-quality education, shown up in the strong evidence from the Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER) of the NGO, Pratham, of declining standards of basic literacy and numeracy from already low levels, over the years since the passage of the Right to Education Act in 2009 (Harriss 2017). The quality of technical training, too, in India, is poor – the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report has commented on India’s ‘miserable performance’, in regard to ‘technology-readiness, higher education, training and skill development’ (and see chapter 13).

Krishna’s studies of the few exceptions, of young people from poor rural backgrounds who have made it into an elite college, also show up the significance of information, of role models and of enabling facilities (such as libraries or counselling), usually provided by an outsider in such cases. These elements, in addition to basic education, seem to be required if even very bright and capable young people from poor rural backgrounds are to develop what Appadurai (2004) has referred to as a ‘capacity to aspire’. Another of Krishna’s surveys, of the career achievements of village people, canvassed in 105 villages, showed that the highest positions that had been achieved were usually only those of village schoolteacher, jawan (ordinary soldier), or police constable, and that very few people indeed could think of achieving any position beyond these.

The relative lack of socio-economic mobility in India is reflected in what The Economist (2018b) has referred to as ‘the missing middle class’. As the journal says, there have been, and there remain, great expectations on the parts of many large international companies about the potential of the Indian market – supposedly there are 300 to 400 million Indians who are now joining the global middle class. But there is mounting evidence that the market in India for the sorts of products and services that are associated with the global middle class – drinking coffee in Starbucks, for instance – is actually quite limited. It is reported that in India Starbucks has opened about one new shop a month over two years, while new Starbucks outlets have opened in China every 15 hours. Though this observation makes for good journalism, it may not be a good indicator because it is probable that consumer tastes over much of India, not just income, limit the demand for Starbucks’ products. And what defines the middle class? This is always, and everywhere, a difficult question. India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has proposed a cut-off of Rs 250,000 annual income, which is about $10 a day, at market rates. Calculations by Chancel and Piketty (2017) lead to the conclusion that only 78 million Indians (6 per cent or so) had that sort of income, and for many of them the price of the latest iPhone, costing $1,400 in India at the time of which The Economist was writing, would have accounted for around 40 per cent of their annual income.

The definition of ‘middle class’ in these calculations seems unduly restrictive, however. Data from a Consumer Economy survey conducted in 2016, for instance, suggest that by that time 11 per cent of Indian households owned a car, and that 36 per cent owned a two-wheeler (Bhattacharya 2016). A study of the middle class by the sociologist Aslany (2019) aims to take account of the different conceptualizations of the middle class by Marx, Weber and Bourdieu, and develops a composite index taking account not only of income and possession of consumer goods, but also of skills and credentials, housing, and social networks. Drawing on data from the Indian Human Development Survey of 2011–12, Aslany reaches the conclusion that around 28 per cent of the population can be considered middle class, though rather more than half of them are ‘lower middle class’, and would not be described as middle class according to the reasoning of The Economist.

Debate about the definition and size of the Indian middle class will go on. India has, without doubt, a very large market for consumer goods – expected, for example, until the sharp downturn in demand for all motor vehicles in 2019, to become the third largest market in the world for automobiles. And how much the middle-class market will grow – as so many of the big corporates have expected it will – is influenced, negatively, by the way in which the top 1 per cent of earners in India, those who were making more than $20,000 per annum, have been squeezing the rest. The top 1 per cent earn 22 per cent of all income, according to Chancel and Piketty’s calculations (compared with 14 per cent in China) – and they are succeeding in capturing an increasing share of all national growth. Given this, and the failure of the economy to generate productive employment, the vast majority of Indians will still struggle to make it into the ranks of Aslany’s ‘lower middle class’.