REVIEW: Sarpanch Sahib

REVIEW

Sarpanch Sahib: Changing The Face Of India
Edited by Manjima Bhattacharjya
HarperCollins
Rs 175
Pp 152
ISBN: 817223905X
Paperback

Blurb
The book talks about seven gutsy women in seven far flung villages of India: Deepanjali, the adivasi graduate sarpanch treading new waters in Kalahandi; Chinapappa, the non-literate panchayat president in Tamil Nadu making education accessible to children; Sunita, struggling against a corrupt system in Madhya Pradesh; Maya, comingg to terms with sudden electoral defeat in the hills of Uttarakhand; Maloti, finding innovative ways of governing her constituencies in tea estate in Assam; Veena Devi, young widow and seasoned politician, navigating the criminalized politics in Bihar; and Kenchamma, the first Dalit woman president of Tarikere panchayat in Karnataka

Reviews
A silent revolution Deccan Herald

What do Deepanjali from Kalahandi, Chinapappa from Pachinakapalli, Sunita Adivasi from Tighra, Maya Bhakhuni from Boonga, Maloti Gowalla from Chamong, Veena Devi from Nawada, Kenchamma from Tarikere — separated from each other by thousands of kilometers — have in common? Possibly even unaware of each other’s existence, these women are nevertheless bonded by the revolution that swept through rural India in the guise of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment.

At a time when there is an animated debate on the 33 percent reservation for women in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, this book could not have been timelier. Even as arguments against reservations are eloquently voiced, and even while conceding that the bill in its current forms need major surgery, there is no doubt that women’s reservation will play a positive role. And Sarpanch Sahib proves well the empowerment that reservations can and have conferred on large sections of society — the critical mass.

Caste & the labour market

Review
BLOCKED BY CASTE, ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION IN MODERN INDIA
Edited by Sukhadeo Thorat, Katherine S. Newman;
Oxford University Press,
Rs. 750

This is an excellent volume — carefully-researched and eye-opening — on caste-based injustice in our society and economy. Now, while there is a literature that documents discrimination and the denial of civil liberties, there is very little understanding and research on the practice of caste discrimination in markets, notably in modern, urban and metropolitan settings, and in public institutions. This book takes up the challenge of understanding the latter by means of systematic research on the question.

A useful four-fold classification of the types of discrimination is proposed by Thorat and Newman: complete exclusion, selective inclusion, unfavourable inclusion, and selective exclusion. Complete exclusion would occur, for example, if Dalits were totally excluded from purchase of land in certain residential areas. Selective inclusion refers to differential treatment or inclusion in markets, such as disparity in payment of wages to Dalit workers and other workers. Unfavourable inclusion or forced inclusion refers to tasks in which Dalits are incorporated based on traditional caste practices, such as bonded labour. Lastly, selective exclusion refers to exclusion of those involved in “polluting occupations” (such as leather tanning or sanitary work) from certain jobs and services.

Study in rural areas
There is a body of research on discrimination in rural areas and on the continuation of caste barriers to economic and social mobility in village India. There is a myth, however, that caste does not matter in the urban milieu and that, with the anonymity of the big city and with education and associated job and occupational mobility (assisted by affirmative action), traditional caste-based discriminatory practices disappear. This book explodes that myth in a set of chapters that focus on the formal labour market. These chapters use methodologies developed in the United States to study racial discrimination, and are written in collaboration with scholars from the U.S.

Thorat and Attewell ran an experiment to test caste discrimination in the urban labour market. For one year, researchers collected advertisements from leading English language newspapers for jobs in the private sector that required a university degree but no specialised skills. The researchers then submitted three false applications for each job. The applicants, all male, had the same or similar education qualification and experience. One of them had a recognisable upper caste Hindu name, another a Muslim name and the third a distinctly Dalit name. The expected outcome was a call for interview or further screening.

An analysis of the outcomes, using regression methods, showed that, although there were an equal number of false applicants from three social groups, for every 10 upper caste Hindu applicants selected for interview, only six Dalits and three Muslims were chosen. Thus, in modern private enterprises (including IT), applicants with a typical Muslim or Dalit name had a lower chance of success than those with the same qualification and an upper caste Hindu name.

Full report here The Hindu

English translation of Panchlight launched

Panchlight & Other Stories, eminent writer Rakhshanda Jalil’s English translation of a collection of short stories by one of Hindi’s foremost writer Phanishwar Nath Renu, was released by Jawahar Sircar, Secretary, Union Ministry of Culture, on  February 17 at India International Centre, in the presence of a galaxy of noted writers including Harish Trivedi, Sudhir Chandra and Mushirul Hassan.

The stories in this collection are set in rural Bihar, a world of poverty, ignorance, helplessness, superstition and exploitation. The characters are the landless, the disenfranchised and the marginalized.

Phanishwar Nath Renu wrote of passions spent, hurts unresolved, dreams unfulfilled, in the context of a changing world and a crumbling social order, thus making the appeal of the stories universal.

Full report here TwoCircles.net

Related stories
Panchlight and Other Stories Jahane Rumi
Bihar in translation Hindustan Times (Khushwant Singh)