Decoding the Inequality among the Lower Class

Had been to one seminar recently and a young boy while talking surprisingly mentioned that Dalits are Buddhists, and they are not Hindus…

Buddha is perceived to be assertion of Dalit Voice in Modern Day India. Many Young Indians perceive that majority of the SC/ST population is Buddhist and as more narratives are built, a strong feeling that Buddhism is the predominant religion of the Dalits is setting in minds of millions of youths in this country.

Is this true? What is the population of Buddhist SCs, Hindu SCs, Christian SCs and are there even Muslim SCs? These are some complex questions which I would address. Also whether Hindu SCs are better off then then Christian SCs.

In this article, I’m placing some extraordinary data which has never been analyzed where religion and caste data has been merged with Wealth Inequality Data to prove the rising inequalities among the Scheduled caste community.

Let us first look whether constituition recognizes Scheduled castes from other religions. For this we need to look at the constitution(scheduled castes) order 1950 which is reproduced below:

The Constitution(scheduled castes) order 1950 allowed Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist religion as deemed member of Scheduled Caste.

Although many SCs are converted to Christianity, but those converted SCs cannot avail benefits of reservation as per the above order and it is with this reason, that some states like Andra have included converted SCs to Christianity in Other Backward Classes Category.

Hindu SC, Buddhist SC, Sikh SC and a Christian SC (many converted SC still reap the benefits of reservation) is a reality and even Muslim SCs also exist. Although officially this is not accepted by many, but many NSS Surveys carried out have revealed existence of caste system even among Muslims. The extracts of the data are enclosed below

Muslim Castes also exists among SCs, however they are negligible.

But nobody knows whether there is a sequential inequality that exists among these groups.

Can we say with enough confidence that SC are the poorest in the country? This is the entire crux of the issue since there is absolutely no data on such wealth distribution among various groups.

I happened to see the National Family Health Survey 2015–16 enclosed above for analysis of SC/ST/OBC percentage in India. Around 81.4% of the population is Hindu and only 1.0% of the population is Buddhist and 2.7% of the population is Christians. Even if we assume that the entire Buddhist and Christian population is SC/ST, we have just 3.7% of the Indian population as SC/ST, while the total SC/ST population in India as per this survey is 29.8%.

Bulk of the SC/ST population in India are Hindus.

A large set of wealth inequality indices for various religions and castes were also provided in these surveys. This data gives real insights into wealth inequality among various religions and castes in the country. The extracts of the same are given below,

As per the above analysis, more than 51.1% of the Scheduled caste population is in the lowest wealth quintile and only 11.3% of the Scheduled caste population is in the upper wealth quintile. The situation among Scheduled Tribes is even worse with more than 70.7% of the population being in the lowest two quintiles and just 5.4% of the population is in the upper wealth quintile. This is dismally low compared to OBC’s and Other General Category castes, where more than 34% is in the upper wealth quintile and just 24.8% of the total population is in the lower wealth quintile.

The sequential inequality of castes and religion mix based on the lowest two wealth quintile is given below

Scheduled Tribe (70.7%) > Scheduled Caste(51.1%) > Other Backward Class (37.8%)> Others (24.8%)

Hindu( 41.4%) > Muslim (38.3%) > Christian (27.3%) > Buddhist (28.7%)> Sikh ( 5.4%)

So, if we merge both

Scheduled Tribe (70.7%) > Scheduled Caste(51.1%) >Hindu( 41.4%) > Muslim (38.3%) > Other Backward Class (37.8%)>Christian (27.3%) >Buddhist (28.7%)> Others (24.8%)> Sikh ( 5.4%)> Jains (1.3%)

So, what does this indicate? ST/SC’s and Hindu’s are at the lowest rungs of the sequential inequality of wealth.

Now let me take you through some more research papers which are significant in analyzing this sequential inequality.

Please refer the Paris School of Economics paper on Wealth Inequality, Class and Caste in India 1951–2012 written by Nitin Kumar Bharti which gives some exciting interpretation of the sequential inequality of wealth among various groups.

I’m reproducing a few important tables from this paper for everyone’s use.

Average annual income of a household in India is Rs.113,222(Rs.∼ 9,435 per month). The annual income of ST and SC group stands at 0.7 times and 0.8 times lower than the all-India average income.

OBC and Muslims both have around 0.9 times household income of the overall average income.

Forward castes (FC), have average household income at 1.4 times the all-India income (with a slight difference between Brahmin and Non-Brahmin).

There is sequential inequality (SI) based on average income with ranking

ST < SC < Muslim < OBC < OVERALL <
FC(Non — Brahmin) < FC(Brahmin) < Others .

The above table also gives sequential inequality in wealth which is as follows

ST < SC < Muslim < OVERALL < OBC < FC(Non — Brahmin) < FC(Brahmin) < Others

When there is negative value between wealth share and population share it shows that there is high inequality. Notice that Forward castes who have lesser population share own majority of the wealth in India. The worst situation is with the SC population.

There is also perceptible land inequality among SCs compared to other populations.

Now this is also visible in Education levels, where again there is sequential inequality among various groups

ST < Muslim < SC < OVERALL < OBC <
FC(Non-Brahmin) < FC(Brahmin) < Others

So clearly the SC/STs are at the lowest level of income capabilities. While in terms of Education, Muslims appears to be even lower than SC. The three groups SC/ST/Muslims are at the lowest rungs of the development indices.

Now let us dissect this data and see among various groups with in SCs and ST. Can we dissect the data across various religions and who are benefitted and who are benefitted with in the SCs and STs?

Now the above data is for different religions within the SC/ST/OBC groups.

We can see that within ST, Christians have 1.6 times income and assets than all-India average and their educational level is better than many other groups. Muslim ST’s economic parameters are closer to all-India average but education wise they are behind. Hindus and Other/No religion ST’s which forms 78% and 12% of all ST’s are the worst performing groups.

In the SC group, Hindu (93%) and Others (6%) are two major groups and we see that SC’s from other religions have outcomes at par with the all-India level. Hindu SC’s have worse outcomes and their mean assets have declined from 2005, which is a worrying issue.

In OBC, the two big groups are Hindu (82%) and Muslim (16%). Hindu OBC’s have better educational averages than Muslim OBC’s. On the economic scale they look almost the same. The small group of other religion in OBC’s are in
no way backward.

So, it is evident from the above analysis is that Hindu SC’s have worse outcomes compared to others.

So, the analysis clearly shows that there is rampant inequalities even with in SC/ST population and the majority of the SCs who are Hindus who were oppressed for many years continue to be still at the lower rungs of development indexes. It is very surprising to see that the non Hindu SC/ST who moved away from Hinduism have prospered better compared to the rest. The analysis clearly shows that the social, economic and political power is getting concentrated among few sections of the society. Earlier it was thought that the SC as a group was a homogeneous group, however with growing access to various capabilities like education and employment, the conditions of many have increased and this is becoming visible in analysis shown above.