Social Protection and Class Relations: Evidence from Scheduled Caste Women's Associations in Rural South India

Abstract

This article argues that the labouring class poor are best able to access social protection when they have sufficient economic autonomy from their village's dominant class to allow them to act politically. To this end, the article analyses the capacity of associations of scheduled caste female labourers in rural Karnataka (south India) to access social protection through collective action. It identifies links between modifications of the material conditions of the labouring class, their capacity to take political action and the social and institutional forms that reflect the social relations of production. Three important variables are identified: the extent of economic autonomy from the dominant class, support from class‐conscious social movement organizers and the political configuration of the local state. The former variable in particular is something that the mainstream social protection policy agenda fails to prioritize.

Economic Self‐Help group Programs for Improving Women's Empowerment: A Systematic Review

“…There was almost complete agreement between the two researcher assessors. In two cases associated with consideration of ethical issues and one case associated with the relationship between the researcher and the participants, one researcher felt that she could not tell whether a criterion was met, whereas the other researcher was able to identify the information to answer the criteria (Pattenden, 2011;Ramachandar & Pelto, 2009;Kumari, 2011). 5 Details of the quality appraisal assessment criteria are in Appendix 5.…”

Class and Social Policy: the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Karnataka, India

“…In contrast, in the similarly remote village of Shiva Camp, NREGS work had been non‐existent from 2007, when GP officials had taken labourers' job cards, until July 2014 (when fieldwork was last conducted). This reflected the broader sociopolitical dynamics in that village: access to non‐agricultural labour markets is lower, control over labour greater, the GP office more remote and the JMS considerably weaker (see Pattenden ). Critically, this was an almost wholly canal‐irrigated village, and farmers had a greater need for labour power than in the drier village of Jagalwara.…”

“…Although the level of NREGS works was lower, the level of appropriation of NREGS funds was not. Research conducted in 2008 indicated that gatekeepers in Raichur were appropriating even more public resources than they were in Dharwad (Pattenden ,b). Spending on GP seats had risen faster and further in Raichur than Dharwad – doubling in the latter between the last two GP elections, but quadrupling in the former .…”

“…NREGS has been found to perform worse in states with greater degrees of inequality and poverty, such as Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha (Bhatia and Drèze ; NCEUS , 217; Kumbhar ), than in those where the overall balance of power has shifted towards classes of labour in recent decades – as, for example, in parts of Tamil Nadu, where relatively dispersed processes of industrialization have increased access to non‐agricultural employment, and diffused dependence on the dominant class (Djurfeldt et al ; Harriss et al ; Heyer ; Carswell and De Neve ). Variations in NREGS performance at sub‐state level (between districts and villages) have also been linked to distributions of power and productive resources, and the extent to which the dominant class controls local government institutions (see, e.g., Pattenden ,b; Reddy 2013).…”

“…Raichur district has more than twice as many members of the scheduled castes as Dharwad) (UNDP ; Pattenden ; Pattenden , 478).…”