Imprisoned Stereotype

Imprisoned stereotype dalit youth are more susceptible to suffer from the cognitive burden of discrimination than other groups.

- D Shyam Babu

ONE ASPECT of globalisation is universal: this is an aspirational age. Its flip side is that it is also an age of anxieties. We should remember that youth unrest, as manifested in several outpourings like the OccupyWall-Street movement, is taking place at a time when poverty levels everywhere are coming down. While the youth today have inherited their parents’ legacy of expecting permanent jobs, the global economy has set the stage for a different world where people will be changing jobs and places of work several times during their working life.

Dalits are confronted with hurdles to pursue their aspirations, over and above what other “normal” groups are confronted with. This is also true of Muslims and other groups who suffer from the stigma of negative stereotypes.

There are two aspects that further complicate the life of dalits. One, a little over three-fourths of them live in rural areas. Two, their share in the population of badly governed states with less urbanisation is higher than their national average.

These aspects have several implications. They tend to go to government or government-aided schools, which means that they end up studying in non-English medium. In any case, their social and economic conditions merely enable them to get a modicum of education (in social sciences or humanities) which may be appropriate for generalist jobs in government, such as civil services.

Thanks to affirmative action, most educated dalits from a couple of generations after Independence were able to secure government jobs. This was also the period when the government was expanding. The shrinkage of jobs in government for some time now may be contrasted with increasing literacy and educational levels among the community.