Review by S. Venkatesan, Oneworld South Asia, New Delhi
March 23 2006: Caste is inextricably intertwined with every aspect of life in India and further divided into different caste groups broadly termed as the Scheduled Castes, (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Others. The Caste system in characterized by high degree of inter-group inequality in civil, cultural, social and economic and political rights. As a result serious disparity prevailed between the low castes and others in their development.
Kerala has also been witnessed of the most rigid caste system. However, there has been changes in allover and significant improvement in Kerala. Thanks to social reform movements, state intervention and public action by community themselves.
This briefing looks at the situation of caste disparity in today’s Kerala context, drawing some evidences of its prevalence from recent State Human Development Report 2005.
Kerala state human development report 2005 is the sixteenth of its kind led by the UNDP, Union Planning Commission and the State Planning Commissions. The first state human development report was prepared by Madhya Pradesh in 1995, and was followed by other states, namely, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Punjab, Nagaland, Orissa, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. Reports for 7 other States are at various stages of preparation.
Kerala stands unique among Indian States with a consistently higher level of human development comparable with that of many advanced countries but with a much lower per capita income. Kerala’s achievements in terms of some of the basic indicators of human development are well known and have been much commented upon. The life expectancy at birth of over 73 years in Kerala, well beyond what has been attained in the rest of , compares well with Asian countries like , and . Importantly, however, these countries, unlike Kerala, were already on a path of economic growth. Kerala’s female-to-male ratio, at 1.058, is identical to that of Europe and North America. It is substantially higher than that for (0.94) or for the rest of (0.93).Further; Kerala is much ahead of other Indian States in achieving the goal of universalising elementary education. The State ranked first among major Indian States in the Human Development Index (HDI) at the three time points of 1981, 1991 and 2001, but its per capita income lagged much behind the all-India average till recently (HDR Kerala 2005).
This phenomenon of higher rate of translation efficiency in terms of public action, and giving higher priority and precedence to the development of basic education and health in response to organised public demand, the report attributes (HDR Kerala 2005).
Kerala again unique in the sense that it is the first state to examine in some details the problem of social group inequalities in human development in terms of aggregate index. Chapter four of the report analyse the variations in human development through an index of generalised deprivation by social groups at district level.
The generlaised deprivation index consists of access to basic social amenities - housing, electricity lighting, good sanitation and drinking water, the report reveals that a much higher index of deprivation for SCs and STs it is higher by 70 and 115 per cent, respectively, as compared to other caste and community groups in the State. The STs in Wayanad district are the most deprived social group, followed by the STs in Idukki and Palakkad, and among the SCs, the most deprived are in Kasaragod district.
As expected, in all districts, ‘other’ caste groups are the least deprived. Interestingly, the disparity in deprivation does not exist between SCs and other caste groups in Idukki and it is low in Wayanad. The findings suggest that spatial inequality in Kerala is less of a problem than that of social groups.
In case of other indicators such as poverty, while Kerala’s performance in reducing overall poverty is indeed remarkable, there is evidence of disparity across various social/caste groups. Poverty in the State is more concentrated in certain segments of the population, such as traditional fishermen, cashew and coir workers, and the people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
The incidence of rural poverty among SCs in the State in 1983 was higher than that of that is 62 per cent as against 58 per cent. However, Kerala has registered a marked reduction in poverty among the SCs along with poverty reduction in the general population. By 1993-94, Kerala outpaced in reducing poverty among SCs, bringing it down to 36 per cent as against 48 per cent for all-India further to 14.6 per cent in 1999-2000; the all-India percentage was much higher at 36 per cent
With respect to the rural ST population, though Kerala has succeeded in reducing the level of poverty from 37 per cent to 24 per cent between 1993-94 and 1999-2000, achieved a reduction from 52 per cent to 49 per cent only. However, rural poverty among STs in Kerala still remains more than two-and-a-half times that of the all Kerala rural population below the poverty line, which stands at 9.4 per cent; the SC population below the poverty line in urban Kerala declined from 63 per cent to 32 per cent during 1983 to 1993-94, and further to 24 per cent in 1999-2000. Thus, disparity in urban poverty between the SCs and the general population has narrowed down, the latter being about 20 per cent in 1999-2000.
The report attributes the reason for decline in poverty among SCs and STs could be to the increase in wages of rural labourers, growth in urbanisation and range of anti-poverty measures undertaken by both the Central and State Governments, and to the growth of the general economy, which, in turn, raises the average level of income.
However, what is still a matter of concern is the over-representation of both SCs and STs in the population below the poverty line in the State.
In Kerala, the dependence of the SC/ST population on agriculture is much higher than the general population. Although the overall proportion of main workers in the non-primary sector among the SCs is about 17 per cent lower compared to the general population, the proportion is close to 50 per cent in the most urbanised districts (Narayana ibid.). This is not so for the ST population; the proportion of which in the non-primary sector is low, irrespective of the district they belong to. Further, the district with a large concentration of STs (Wayanad) is the least urbanised and has shown practically no growth in this respect. The lower economic diversification, which also impacts on level of wages earned in agriculture, does get translated into poorer material conditions of life and in turn constrains access to basic social amenities, whether it is housing, electricity lighting, good sanitation and drinking water.
In terms of land holdings among the SC and ST households in the State, the average size of landholding among the STs is 0.68 acres, which is higher than that for the SCs (0.32 acres), OBCs (0.40 acres) and others (0.63 acres). Though the average size of land ownership is higher among the STs, given the historical experiences of land encroachment, acquisition of forest land by the Government and tribal displacement, the STs remain vulnerable, the proportion of households with more than one hectare declining over time. Landlessness is higher among the SCs than STs as also the ‘others’. Both the Central and State Governments have made various efforts to protect and promote the land rights of the SC and ST population. Yet, the outcome is far from satisfactory, given the requirement of these households, largely dependent on land.
The surplus land declared in Kerala as part of land reforms was itself low at only 1.35 lakh acres. Out of this 47 per cent of the area was distributed among vulnerable sections as on March 1996. It has benefited nearly 43 per cent of the SCs and 5 per cent of the ST population. The average size of land made available to the SCs was only 41 cents; and for STs, it was 71 cents. As per the national guidelines, 50 per cent of the surplus land declared is to be distributed among the SCs and STs.
While the all-India situation meets this stipulation, Kerala lags behind with only 47 per cent of the area declared surplus having been made available to Scheduled Castes and Tribes thus far. Hence, the achievement on this front lags behind expectations, which has led to the recent struggles for land rights in Kerala by adivasi organizations (Ravi Raman, 2003 quoted in the report).
In case of education, the report uses literacy from census 1991 and the NSSO data for 1999-00and found that over a quarter of the ST population was illiterate compared to just a little over 10 per cent for ‘others’; the situation is slightly better for SCs followed by OBCs. However, it is at the higher levels that the differences are more striking, especially from ‘secondary’ level onwards. Hence, the deprived groups lag behind the ‘others’ in this basic functioning achievement, which has played a central role in Kerala’s development process, the report observes.
Across all districts, the literacy rates of SCs and STs are lower than the non-SC/ST population; the variability is higher for females in the SC/ST groups. Further female literacy among the ST population is significantly lower in the districts of Palakkad (29 per cent), Malappuram (38 per cent), Wayanad (43 per cent).
The analysis, on the whole, seems to suggest that variation in deprivation between the districts in Kerala is more likely to do with social characteristics rather than with regional characteristics. It has been noted that disparity in human development indicators is low among districts where share of SC/ST population among the districts is low. So these districts, which also have a higher share of SC/ST population in the State, need special attention for implementing policies and programmes to improve the basic well-being indicators such as quality of housing, access to water, good sanitation, and electricity lighting.
The broad finding of the report is that the major failures of human development achievement in Kerala has been the prevalence of caste inequality, though it has narrowed down over the years and the extent of inequality may be low compared to other states or all India. The report suggests that state attention should be paid to improve the well-being of the SCs/STs in the state.
Source: Human Development Report 2005: Kerala, State Planning Board, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, 2006. Price. Rs. 500, PP. 199.
