Indien – Treiber der Transformation
The accountant of the oppressed
The caste system has been officially abolished in India for almost a hundred years – yet it still excludes millions and millions of people from social advancement. Economist Beena Pallical is fighting this system. Her weapon: economic education.
On January 17th, 2016, Rohith Vemula hanged himself from a ceiling fan in a dormitory at the University of Hyderabad. The death of the sociology PhD student sparked nationwide protests. Vemula's name is inextricably linked with the question regarding opportunities for the poorest in the society of the world's largest democracy.
Rohith Vemula was a Dalit, born into a group considered untouchable in the Hindu caste tradition (see box). He campaigned against continuous discrimination against Dalits at his university – with fatal consequences. Months before his death, the payments from his scholarship – to which he was entitled – were stopped. The university suspended him. His suicide note reads: „My birth is my fatal accident.“
To this day the list of injustices and violence suffered by Dalits in India is long and cruel: children get beaten to near death for drinking from taps belonging to higher castes , women are raped, men suspected of trading beef get beaten to death. The strict caste hierarchy has more power than the system of laws, especially in rural India. The number of marginalised people is indeed large: estimates from international research institutes are a quarter of the population and the Indian government ereckons with 16.6 percent, around 230 million people.
Numerous politicians are Dalits, and since British rule an elaborate quota system is used to give these and other marginalised groups access to government jobs. Alas little has changed in the system of exclusion. According to political scientist Rehnamol Raveendran of Allahabad University, most Dalit representatives remain silent out of loyalty to the political parties in which the upper castes call the shots.
Still, eight years after his death, Rohith Vemula's fate attracts attention, because the young man chose not to remain silent. And because he came so close to achieving his goal of social improvement.
„Education is the way out“, says Beena Pallical. Sitting in her office in Delhi, she speaks about her mission in a loud voice. „For decades, we have talked about violence against Dalits, about the atrocities committed against the community.“ But now people have widened their horizons. „What else do we need, apart from the absence of violence? We need a roof over our heads, we need medical care and above all we need education“, says Pallical.
An economist from the Dalit community herself, she is president of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), a non-governmental organisation that advocates Dalits across the country. To help them, we need to talk about money, Pallical says. About government funds that are meant for the most vulnerable, but almost never reach them – scholarships like the one given to student Rohith Vemula.
Few people outside the Indian finance ministry can decipher the columns of figures and acronyms of the national budget as well as Pallical. She teaches Dalits across India to read the government's budget plans: Financial literacy for a better life.
This strategy of empowerment, which Pallical has helped to shape, is linked to her background. „My parents had a vision of upward mobility for me", says Pallical. „My father told me, 'Study what you want. We'll support you. Get a job – and don't come back.'" Many Dalits and other minorities dream of success abroad. While in India a person's surname often reveals their caste and position in society, no one can tell the difference between a Dalit and a Brahmin in the US or Europe.
Pallical's parents had already risen in the hierarchie of society and were able to send her to Pune to study economics. Pallical went on to do a Masters in Business Administration in Milan, where she worked for several years in marketing and human resources development. But then, against her father's advice, she returned to India to put her skills to work for the community.
According to a 2021 UN report, today around 94 million Dalits in India are living in poverty. They tend to work in menial jobs, earning significantly less than the average, are more likely to be unemployed and are much less likely to own land – a disadvantage in a society where the majority of the rural population live from subsistence farming.
Pallical wants to use her knowledge of government budgets to change this. „The budget is the most powerful economic tool for meeting the demands of marginalised communities“, she says. „If you know what's in it, you have the power to change policies.“
She and her team scrutinise every new government budget, looking for funds that are assigned to Dalits but who are not recieving any. Since the 1980s, the Indian government has pledged to spend a certain amount of its budget on helping Dalits. This includes funds for education, housing and infrastructure. If Dalits officially make up 16.6 percent of the population, the same proportion of funds should be allocated to development programmes for them.
But this is not the case. Even the government thinktank Niti Aayog concludes that the ministries are using the money to fund general welfare programmes instead. In 2022-23, only about 14 of the 41 ministries had allocated the designated share. When Beena Pallical joined the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights in 2010, she and her team publicised the fact that over the previous four years, a total of around 83.6 million euros from the Dalit Fund had been used for projects related to the Commonwealth Games.
„Since then, we have done this every year when the budget is published on the first of February", says Pallical. „Our team locks itself in with the documents until we have deciphered them, and then we start our campaign." With press conferences, letters to the government, MPs and the media, they make their findings public – and increase the pressure to actually spend the money on Dalits. „After the uproar we caused in Parliament in 2010, the funds were finally returned in full", says Pallical.
She and her colleagues are particularly keen to support students – like Rohith Vemula. The scholarship programme, launched in 1944 by social reformer B.R. Ambedkar (see box), now supports more than six million students from families with an annual income of less than 2,800 euros. A student grant for the country's poorest. But since 2018, there have been repeated delays in payments and most scholars have not received their money because the central government has not released its share of funds. Students have had to abandon their studies with dire consequences, including the Vemula case – which galvanised many people and led to a campaign to save the Dalit Scholarship.
„We fought for this programme for years", Benna Pallical says. She doesn't want to go into detail, so as not to jeopardise the fragile cooperation with the Hindu nationalist government. „You have to have a lot of patience", she says. „But in the end, payments were resumed and even increased by 66,000 euros for the next four years." The NGO is supported by international organisations such as Brot für
die Welt. The NCDHR's budget is currently around one million euros a year for a team of around 100 people. Until now. But since 2010, NGOs can only receive funds from foreign donors with a licence issued by the government. Since then, some hundred organisations have lost their licences. „Ours hasn't been renewed yet either", says Pallical. „It gives me sleepless nights."
Pallical has high hopes for sharing her skills: „We run workshops all over the country where we train people to fill in applications for schemes and public entitlements. After all, only if the budget is used it can be spent in Dalit communities. It is just as complicated and bureaucratic as applying for a grant from the EU – so you can imagine that you might need training", she says.
The NCDHR trains around 100 people each year. In 15 of India's 28 states, Dalit activists already regularly scrutinise the state budgets flow of money . In addition, some 500 people are being taught by experts how to access funds for their education or for community projects. „A hundred years ago, we weren't even allowed an education. But in twenty years' time, if all the Dalit children living today have access to schools, our society will be a better one.“
Is it possible to dismantleancient structures of discrimination with economic subsidies? Beena Pallical smiles slightly at this question. „Dr Ambedkar said that there can be no social justice without economic justice and vice versa. They are two sides of the same coin," she says. Pallical explains that they have learnt to use their anger at continued marginalisation as a driving force behind their actions. „When I started sitting and engaging with political parties and members of parliament, there was always one question: who is this Dalit woman and why is she sitting at our table?" Pallical laughs out loud. „It took me many years of shouting and screaming to gain respect."
Today, everyone in Delhi knows the Dalit accountant.
The Dalit movement
This large group of people used to be called 'untouchables', but the term is now used only in a historical context. 'Scheduled Castes' is the common term in indian politics and administration i But the most common word of self-identification is 'Dalits', a Sanskrit term that can be translated as 'oppressed'.
There can be no more degrading system of social organisation than the caste system. It is the system that incapacitates, paralyses and prevents people from doing anything useful," said Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, who remains the central figure of the Dalit movement. The lawyer was one of the influential fathers of the Indian Constitution and the first Minister of Law after Indias independence from Britain. To this day, Ambedkar is revered by Dalits throughout India, and statues and portraits of the social reformer can be found in many places.
Ambedkar was a Dalit himself and launched a movement to improve the Dalits situation and to break out of the Hindu caste system, in part by converting to Buddhism. His intellectual opponent was Gandhi, who wanted to reform the caste system rather than abolish it. Ambedkar accused Gandhi of ignorance: ' „he really appears to be prostituting his intelligence to find reasons for supporting this archaic social structure of the Hindus. He is the most influential apologist of it (...).“ .
What are castes?
The classification of people into castes dates back to a passage in the oldest part of the Hindu religious scriptures, the Rig Veda. It contains the Hymn ‘Paurusha Sukta', a classic creation story in which the cosmic giant Purusha is sacrificed when the world is created. The individual parts of his body are transformed into groups of people. In the original text, there probably was no clear hierarchy, but in later additions certain professions were assigned to them: The Brahmins (priests) came out of the giant's mouth. The arms became Rajanyas or Kshatriyas (leaders and warriors). The thighs became Vaishyas (artisans, traders, farmers). And the feet became Shudras (labourers and servants).
Outside these castes are the casteless, "the untouchables, the unseen, the unapproachable – whose presence, whose touch, even whose shadow is considered spiritually polluting to Hindus of privileged castes", writes writer and activist Arundathi Roy, adding sarcastically: "Each region of India has lovingly perfected its own unique version of caste-based cruelty."
Unlike classism, which is also known in western industrialised countries, B.R. Ambedkar speaks of a 'sealed class' when referring to castes. Even if the caste has all the characteristics of a social class, advancement is not possible even if enough financial or cultural capital has been accumulated.
Since the 1950s, the Indian Constitution has prohibited discrimination against people from lower castes and indigenous groups. The state is also obliged to give them special attention.
––––––––
This series is funded by the European Journalism Center, as part of the Solutions Journalism Accelerator. This fund is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
None of these organizations have any influence on the content.