Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-jtdwj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-29T07:10:59.065Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Competing Inequalities: The Scheduled Tribes and the Reservations System in India's Jharkhand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2010

Stuart Corbridge
Get access

Extract

This paper reports on the economic and political consequences of reserving government and public-sector jobs for members of the Scheduled Tribes in the Indian State of Bihar. It also contributes to a more general debate on the system of compensatory discrimination that has existed in India since the 1940s, and which was made tangible for middle class Indians by the decision of the government of V. P. Singh (1989–90) to adopt some of the recommendations of the Second Backward Classes Commission (1979–80: chairman B. P. Mandal). The Mandal Commission report advised that a system of reserved jobs in central government could usefully be extended from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes of India (roughly 15 and 7.5 percent of the population, respectively) to embrace a broader collection of Socially and Economically Backward Classes.1 In August 1990 V. P. Singh found it expedient to act upon Mandal's suggestion that up to 49.5 percent of all jobs in central government services and public undertakings should be reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Information

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , February 2000 , pp. 62 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

List of References

Ambedkar, B. R. 1945. Annihilation of Castes, with a Reply to Mahatma Gandhi. Bombay: Bharat Bhushan Press.Google Scholar
Austin, G. 1993. “The Constitution, Society, and Law.” Chapter 4 in India Briefing, 1993, edited by Oldenburg, Philip. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Bahl, V. 1995. The Making of the Indian Working Class: The Case of the Tata Iron and Steel Co., 1880–1946. Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Crispin, Bates. 1994. “ ‘Lost Innocents and the Loss of Innocence’: Interpreting Adivasi Movements in South Asia.” Chapter 6 in Indigenous Peoples of Asia, edited by Barnes, R. H., Gray, A., and Kingsbury, B.. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Association for Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Crispin, Bates 1995. “Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the Early Origins of Indian Anthropometry.” Chapter 7 in The Concept of Race in South Asia, edited by Robb, P.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Amita, Baviskar. 1995. In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Berger, M. 1995. “Post-War Capitalism: Modernization and Modes of Resistance after the Fall.” Third World Quarterly 16:717–28.Google Scholar
Marshall, Berman. 1982. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. London: Verso.Google Scholar
AndrÉ, BÉTeille. 1965. Caste, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Tanjore Village. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
AndrÉ, BÉTeille. 1974. Six Essays in Comparative Sociology. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pierre, Bourdieu. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Paul, Brass. 1994. The Politics of India Since Independence, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jan, Breman. 1996. Footloose Labour: Working in India's Informal Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
CAD. Constituent Assembly Debates. Government of India. 1946–49. Debates of the Constituent Assembly of India, 1–9. New Delhi: Government of India Press.Google Scholar
Kanchan, Chandra. 2000. “Rising Scheduled Castes: Explaining the Success of the Bahujan Samaj Party.” Journal of Asian Studies (this volume).Google Scholar
Stuart, Corbridge. 1988. “The Ideology of Tribal Economy and Society: Politics in the Jharkhand, 1950–1980.” Modern Asian Studies 22:1–42.Google Scholar
Stuart, Corbridge 1993. “Ousting Singbonga: the Struggle for India's Jharkhand.” Chapter 4 in Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India, edited by Robb, P.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stuart, Corbridge. 1998. “ ‘Beneath the Pavement only Soil‘: The Poverty of Post-Development.” Journal of Development Studies 34:138–48.Google Scholar
Stuart, Corbridge, and Harriss, John. 2000. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Cowen, M., and Shenton, R.. 1996. Doctrines of Development. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
CWSCST. Government of India. Reports of the Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (various). New Delhi: Government of India.Google Scholar
Das, A. 1992. The Republic of Bihar. Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Devalle, Susana B. C. 1992. Discourses of Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkhand. Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Dhebar, U. N. (chairman). 1962. Report of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission. New Delhi: Government of India.Google Scholar
Nicholas, Dirks. 1992. “Castes of Mind.” Representations 37:56–78.Google Scholar
Elwin, V. 1960. “Beating a Dead Horse.” Seminar 14:25–28.Google Scholar
Escobar, A. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, C. J., ed. 1996. Caste Today. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marc, Galanter. 1991. Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ghurye, G. S. 1980. The Scheduled Tribes. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.Google Scholar
Government of India (various years) Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. New Delhi.Google Scholar
Government of the United Kingdom. 1935. Parliamentary Debates: Official Report, 5th Series, Volumes 299–301. London.Google Scholar
Guha, Ramachandra. 1999. Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals and India. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas Blom. 1999. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ronald, Inden. 1990. Imagining India. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ronald, Inden. 1995. “Imperial Progresses to National Progresses in India.” Economy and Society 24:245–78.Google Scholar
Christophe, Jaffrelot. 2000. “The Rise of the Other Backward Classes in North Indian Politics.” Journal of Asian Studies (this volume).Google Scholar
Ayesha, Jalal. 1995. Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Craig, Jeffrey. 1999. “Reproducing Difference: The Investment Decisions of Richer Jat Farmers in Meerut District, Uttar Pradesh, India.” Ph.D. diss. Cambridge University.Google Scholar
Vijay, Joshi, and Little, I. M. D.. 1994. India: Macroeconomics and Political Economy, 1964–1991. Washington D.C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Kaviraj, S. 1991. “On State, Society and Discourse in India.” Chapter 4 in Rethinking Third World Politics, edited by Manor, J.. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Govind, Kelkar, and Nathan, Dev. 1991. Gender and Tribe: Women, Land and Forests in Jharkhand. New Delhi: Kali for Womem.Google Scholar
Keshari, B. P. 1983. Jharkhand Andolan Ki Vastavikta. Ranchi: Prakash.Google Scholar
Lal, M. 1983. The Munda Elite. New Delhi: Harnam.Google Scholar
Mandelbaum, D. G. 1970. Society in India. 2 volumes. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mitra, S. ed. 1990. Politics of Positive Discrimination: A Cross National Perspective. Bombay: Popular.Google Scholar
Munda, R. D. 1988. “The Jharkhand Movement: Retrospect and Prospect.” Social Change 18:28–58Google Scholar
Nambissan, G. 1996. “Equity in Education? Schooling of Dalit Children in India.” Economic and Political Weekly 20–27 April:1011–24.Google Scholar
Nehru, J. 1955. “The Tribal Folk.” In The Adivasis. New Delhi: Government of India.Google Scholar
Parajuli, P. 1996. “Ecological Ethnicity in the Making: Developmentalist Hegemonies and Emergent Identities in India.” Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University. Mimeographed.Google Scholar
Parry, J. 1996. “No mother or father like it: the Bhilai steel plant in central India.” Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Mimeographed.Google Scholar
Parry, J. 1999. “The ‘crisis of corruption’ and ‘the idea of India’: a worm's eye view” Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics. Mimeographed.Google Scholar
Phadnis, U. 1989. Ethnicity and Nation-Building in South Asia. Delhi: Sage.Google Scholar
Schermerhorn, R. A. 1978. Ethnic Plurality in India. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
James, Scott. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sengupta, N., ed. 1982. Fourth World Dynamics: Jharkhand. Delhi: Authors Guild.Google Scholar
Shah, A. 1996. “Job Reservation and Efficiency.” Chapter 10 in Caste: Its Twentieth Century Avatar, edited by Srinivas, M. N.. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Shah, G. 1991. “Social Backwardness and the Politics of Reservations.” Economic and Political Weekly 26 (11 and 12).Google Scholar
Sharma, B. D. 1978. “Administration for Tribal Development.” Indian Journal of Public Administration 23:515–39.Google Scholar
Simmons, C. 1976. “Recruiting and organising an industrial labour force in colonial India: the case of the coal mining industry, c. 1880–1939.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 13:455–85.Google Scholar
Sivaramayya, B. 1996. “The Mandal Judgement: A Brief Description and Critique.” Chapter 13 in Caste: Its Twentieth Century Avatar, edited by Srinivas, M. N.. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Ajay, Skaria. 1992. “A Forest Policy in Western India: The Dangs, 1800s-1920s.” Ph.D. diss. Cambridge UniversityGoogle Scholar
Skrentny, J. 1995. The Ironies of Affirmative Action. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Spillman, L. 1996. “ ‘Neither the Same Nation nor Different Nations’: Constitutional Conventions in the US and Australia.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38:149–81.Google Scholar
Sudarshan, R. 1994. “The Political Consequences of Constitutional Discourse.” Chapter 2 in State and Nation in the Context of Social Change, vol. 1, edited by Sathyamurthy, T.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nicholas, Thomas. 1994. Colonialism's Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Toye, J. 1993. Dilemmas of Development: Reflections on the Counter-Revolution in Development Theory and Policy. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Vanaik, A. 1990. The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Myron, Weiner. 1980. Sons of the Soil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Yogendra, Yadav. 1997. “Reconfiguration in Indian Politics: State Assembly Elections 1993–1995.” Chapter 4 in State and Politics in India, edited by Chatterjee, Partha. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar