Poverty, agrarian change and form of labour in neo-liberal India - a comparative analysis of tribal and upper caste

This paper elaborates nature of semi-proletarianization of the Schedule Tribe practised after the period of neo-liberal reforms in different dimensions. Further, an attempt has been in this paper to check how the change in occupational structure varies between the different social groups viz Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribe and Other due to agrarian distress and increasing pattern of dispossession in the era of economic reform and how it influenced the poverty situation among the different social groups. Now in doing so, it contradicts the view of decreasing gap of poverty between social groups concluded several present researchers. It has been found that although it is also evident that, using expenditure as the dimension of poverty, the poverty among ST have a declining trend, but the rate of decline is lower than the that of the upper caste thus the ratio of the poverty index between the social groups taking ST poverty index as numerator is increasing over the time since the neo-liberal policies have been introduced. This indicates a strong divergence which contradicts the view of decreasing gap of poverty between social groups concluded several present researchers. Further, using econometric analysis, it has been found that increasing semi-proletarianisation among STs relative to that of Others is one of the reasons increasing divergence between ST and Others.