Review of GROUND DOWN BY GROWTH – TRIBE, CASTE, CLASS AND INEQUALITY IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY INDIA

 

GROUND DOWN BY GROWTH – TRIBE, CASTE, CLASS AND INEQUALITY IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY INDIA

Pluto Press

Based on in-depth field research this work about the massed ranks of poverty witnessed across diverse Indian regions makes for deeply unpleasant reading.

That is particularly so for those stuck at base level who are descended from the country’s lowest castes, the Adivasis and Dalits. These constitute 1 in 25 of the world’s population. Less educated than other Indian social groups they were previously termed the ‘Untouchables’ and forced to live in segregated areas. This arose after British colonial powers abolished slavery in India in 1843 only to transform it into bondage through debt relations.

Indian independence and the expansion of capitalism was supposed to bring about economic growth and modernity to eliminate caste and tribes.

However, despite the Indian economy being one of the fastest growing this century the future is bleak. Not only for the Adivasis and Dalits but the vast majority in a country where agriculture employs half the workforce and where around 700 million are affected by internal seasonal labour migration, which blocks many from accessing social welfare benefits.  

That is unless the masses organise effectively to oppose the predominant neo-liberal economics, combining privatisation of public services and reduced rights, that never does produce the trickle-down benefits that its proponents claim is one of its biggest benefits. The statistics in the book demonstrates this clearly, percentage reductions in poverty in an economy rising by 6% annually between 1999 and 2010 were miniscule.

Meanwhile in the Western Ghats, Kerala on tea estates such as Hill Valley, the plantation association was successful in increasing the plucking rate from 14kg to 21kg in 2011, and to 25kg in 2016.

Furthermore, the numbers employed permanently, bringing with it access to housing, medical care and sick leave, had declined from two-thirds to under a quarter.

Eventually, 800 tea workers, mainly women, took strike action in the Munnar tea belt. This inspired action elsewhere that included rubber plantation workers. All of which forced the corrupt trade union and political representatives into extending support.

The strikes, which were widely publicised including on the BBC, shoved the government into opening a substantial relief fund for improvements in labour conditions of tea plantation workers. It was a wonderful victory.

More are needed and the book shows there exists a willingness to struggle. In the Bhadrachalam Scheduled Area, Telangana, workers have raised problems with their health, particularly lung concerns, in the villages surrounding the Indian Tobacco Company paper factory that was built by a dominant farming caste group on Adivasi land that should been legally protected from such developments.

Yet, as the final chapter ‘The Struggles Ahead’ shows the most vulnerable and exploited of the Indian workforce amongst the Adivasis and Dalits face a bleak future as they have almost no protection or social security of any kind.