ABSTRACT
The Indian experience with development provides an important case study. Predominantly capitalist in orientation, traces of feudal life still exist in certain parts of the country that pose a challenge to the democratic norms of modern society. 1 Bonded wage labour as opposed to free employment, small-scale labour intensive manufacturing units vis-à-vis larger and fully-automated units of production, and the co-existence of a relatively small organized sector with a massively huge and heterogeneous unorganized sector are a few reflections of the complexities involved. It has been estimated that roughly 77 per cent of the total Indian population, totalling 836 million people, consists of the poor and vulnerable segments of the society, living on less than ₹20 a day (NCEUS 2008: 6). However, poverty as a condition of social life is more than just low or inadequate income. It encompasses several other dimensions such as isolation, vulnerability and powerlessness. Moreover, such deprivation is not natural, or out of bad luck or a matter of choice, but a state of chronic destitution arising from the absence of the most essential and basic of resources.
