ABSTRACT
Six decades after 1947, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, or Dalits and Adivasis – a quarter of the Indian population – still suffer severe discrimination, in spite of protective provision and the positive discrimination measures built into the constitution shortly after independence. A significant index of these effects is the extent to which Dalits and Adivasis have entered the market economy, not as wage labour, but by establishing themselves in business. Using data from the Economic Census (1990 and 1998),1 we have constructed maps showing the differing indices of participation by Dalits (Scheduled Castes (SCs)) and Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes (STs)) in business during the 1990s, when the liberalisation of the Indian economy led many observers to expect significant changes in deeply rooted institutions such as caste. In this chapter, we show that the effects of discrimination vary markedly between regions and states, and between Dalits and Adivasis. Some prima facie surprising results in respect of change in the 1990s suggest a challenging new research agenda.
