Affirmative Action Policies Are Under Threat

Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar speaks to Jitendra.

On restlessness among dalit youth: Both dalit and non-dalits are restless in terms of the unavailability of effective employment. Yes, the young population is growing, but the population of the Scheduled Caste community has been stagnating at 15 per cent as compared to other communities.

As far as cornering new jobs, nondailits benefitted more after the boom in the IT sector. Earlier, the non-dalits got both preferential treatment as well as a fat pay. As dalits and other communities started joining the sector, it became competitive—now there is neither preferential treatment nor a fat pay as companies are getting work done at a lesser cost. When Western countries started to cut down on off shore jobs, the ones who joined late, the dalits, were the first to face the axe. So they became the first victims of unemployment.

Worse, there are no new employment sectors emerging that can employ these large numbers of social groups. That’s because the national leadership is intellectually bankrupt to address the situation.