Development of scheduled castes in India - a review.

Abstract

The polity of our country has realised the significance of the development of weaker sections specially the scheduled castes since Independence. Consequently, planned efforts have been made for their upliftment by the government. This paper has examined the progress made with regard to their social (health, housing, workforce participation, availability of basic amenities and wage employment under income generation schemes), educational and occupational status. Based on secondary data, it has been found that no doubt, a positive change on various socio-economic parameters has been recorded but, that change has touched merely less than half of their population. Further, the gap between the mainstream and scheduled caste population still persists significantly in our traditional society. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reorient and focus the strategy in order to support the lesser privileged by providing qualitative education and infusing among them the individualistic and moralistic values of self-denial, temperance, forethought, thrift, sobriety and self-reliance essential to bring these downtrodden into the national mainstream. * Reader, Department of Social Work, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra (Haryana). Scheduled castes are those castes/races, which have been or may in future be specified in a list in accordance with Article 341 of our Constitution. The people of these castes are considered outcastes and categorised as untouchables. They remain at the bottom of social hierarchy and have been socially deprived, discriminated and exploited by the upper caste Hindus since time immemorial. This is the result of our rigid caste system which divides the Indian society into upper castes and lower castes on the basis of birth. Mythologically, the people of these castes are born impure, culturally they suffer from social disabilities and occupationally they are linked with impure occupation and above all they are exclusively dependent for their survival on the high castes of the respective villages who have tradition bound attitudes, reflected in the nomenclature, castes etc. (Vidyarthi and Mishra 1977). The overall lower socio-economic position of the scheduled castes, made the framers of the Constitution, to realise that special attention is urgently required for their development. As a result, some specific provisions have been incorporated in the Constitution to provide social justice to the members of these castes through the policy of protective discrimination. The basic purpose of incorporating these developmental provisions was to change the traditional social structure of our society, which is based upon socio-economic and political inequalities. These special provisions have played an important role in improving the socio-economic conditions and achieving a respectful position to the members of the scheduled caste communities in the society. Economic growth with social justice has been the major objective of planning process and rural development programmes in India. The government would not only take into account economic goals, but also consider social aspects like providing access to deprived section to participate in the development process. Article