Alpa Shah & Jens Lerche 
Ground Down by Growth [PDF ebook] 
Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st Century India

Why has India’s astonishing economic growth not reached the people at the bottom of its social and economic hierarchy? Travelling the length and breadth of the subcontinent, this book shows how India’s ‘untouchables’ and ‘tribals’ fit into the global economy.



India’s Dalit and Adivasi communities make up a staggering one in twenty-five people across the globe and yet they remain amongst the most oppressed. Conceived in dialogue with economists, Ground Down by Growth reveals the impact of global capitalism on their lives. It shows how capitalism entrenches, rather than erases, social difference and has transformed traditional forms of identity-based discrimination into new mechanisms of exploitation and oppression.



Through studies of the working poor, migrant labour and the conjugated oppression of caste, tribe, region, gender and class relations, the social inequalities generated by capitalism are exposed.

Tabella dei contenuti

List of Illustrations

Series Preface

Preface by Alpa Shah and Jens Lerche

1. Tribe, Caste and Class – New Mechanisms of Exploitation and Oppression – Alpa Shah and Jens Lerche

2. Macro-economic Aspects of Inequality and Poverty in India – K.P. Kannan

3. Tea Belts of the Western Ghats, Kerala – Jayaseelan Raj

4. Cuddalore, Chemical Industrial Estate, Tamil Nadu – Brendan Donegan

5. Bhadrachalam Scheduled Area, Telangana – Dalel Benbabaali

6. Chamba Valley, Himalaya, Himachal Pradesh – Richard Axelby

7. Narmada Valley and Adjoining Plains, Maharashtra – Vikramaditya Thakur

8. The Struggles Ahead – Alpa Shah and Jens Lerche

Appendix: Tables and Figures

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index

Circa l’autore

Jayaseelan Raj is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Development Studies in Kerala. He completed his Ph D in Anthropology at the University of Bergen before joining LSE as a postdoctoral fellow. He has conducted long term fieldwork on Dalit and Adivasis in the tea plantations of South India and on their land struggles. He is the author of Ground Down by Growth (Pluto, 2017).