Neoliberal Reforms: The Exacerbated Marginalization of India’s Dalit Women

Marisa Vogel, The University of California – Santa Barbara

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Abstract  

Have India’s 1991 neoliberal reforms benefited disadvantaged castes, or have they instead intensified their economic vulnerabilities? Despite existing scholarship on India’s economic policies, few studies have examined their negative impact on marginalized communities, leaving a critical gap that this article seeks to fill through a gender, caste, and political analysis. I argue that these reforms have been far more harmful than advantageous for Dalit women, resulting in amplified land insecurities, precarious labor conditions, and poorly implemented welfare programs. The term ‘Dalit’ refers to a social group that has been historically subjected to discrimination in the traditional Indian caste system. By providing the historical context for gender and caste inequalities, I begin by discussing the significant challenges present in the everyday lives of Dalit women. I then analyze how the country’s 1991 economic reforms—emphasizing liberalization, privatization, and globalization—have further ingrained their socioeconomic instability. Finally, I demonstrate that, despite their perceived universal benefits, these policies have aided only a small portion of India’s oppressed castes.

1. Introduction

India’s transition to liberalization in the early 1990s was celebrated by the nation’s policymakers and private industries as a transition away from traditional hierarchies and towards equality amongst all classes. However, it is clear today that these reforms have intensified the oppression experienced by Scheduled Castes, which is the official term in India’s Constitution for marginalized groups experiencing caste-based discrimination. Throughout this article, I use the term ‘precarity’ to refer to economic instability shaped by unjust labor conditions, weak welfare provisions, and vulnerability to land dispossession.

India’s economic reforms were initially implemented as a response to the 1990-1991 balance of payments crisis. This crisis required a rapid response, with little deliberation of the pros and cons. Some of these far-reaching reforms included a large devaluation of the currency, restructuring of capital markets, economic liberalization of the trade regime, and a simplification of investment rules. Along with the new policies came the slogans of ‘liberalisation’, ‘privatization’, and ‘competitiveness’. The reforms were justified based on economic development, and these benefits were believed to trickle down to the poorest communities. While there were some expectations that the poor would initially be negatively impacted, there was an explicit assertion that, in the end, economic growth would be beneficial for struggling communities. Before 1991, India’s policies had emphasized a certain dedication to justice and equality. The Constitution and affirmative action policies guaranteed the Scheduled Castes certain quotas in public sector employment. Additionally, developmental schemes in the form of employment generation had fostered a sense of belonging among India’s poor. Yet after 1991, Dalits began to view the nation’s policies as elitist, where their cherished values of growth accompanied by justice, social responsibility, and accountability, had been undermined. Dalits increasingly encountered market discrimination as the state no longer acted as their safeguard. Contrary to claims of its trickle-down benefits, the lack of expenditures on poverty alleviation and developmental activities demonstrated how these reforms failed to uplift Scheduled Castes, especially in the first years following their passing. Dalits felt left behind by the state, as these economic policies failed to address historical caste prejudices and promote concrete social reform.

2. Literature Review

This research article is grounded in analyses of rural case studies in India and scholarly literature discussing gender and caste-based inequalities. I begin by discussing the work of Bina Agarwal, a highly cited and influential scholar in the fields of gender studies and land possession in South Asia. Her book, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, is essential for understanding the hardships experienced by rural women across different castes. She notably distinguishes between women’s legal entitlements to land and their realized authority due to deeply ingrained patriarchal norms. Furthermore, I explore the book Environmental Politics at the Local, edited by Satyajit Singh and Ajit Menon, which examines a further gap between policy and implementation, evident through consistent undermining of local land possession. In particular, Pampa Mukherjee’s chapter “Common Agricultural Land and Politics of the Local” crucially discusses the exploitation experienced by laborers from Scheduled Castes and the disproportionate impacts of this abuse on Dalit women. While Agarwal and Mukherjee analyze caste and gender-based barriers, little scholarship has considered how India’s 1991 economic reforms have amplified these inequalities. This article demonstrates how hastily applied economic policies can exacerbate pre-existing challenges faced by marginalized groups.

3. Vulnerabilities of Gender and Caste Status

In Agarwal’s A Field of One’s Own, she discusses disparities in land ownership across rural India before the 1991 reforms. In 1987, around 41.6 percent of landowning households in rural India owned less than one acre, and they collectively held only 3.6 percent of total land. These statistics demonstrate the incredibly uneven distribution of land, which is essential for economic independence, social status, and political influence. These challenges are especially prominent for India’s women, who often lack the ability to own or reap benefits from any percentage of land. Despite the existence of land inheritance laws, daughters and widows in rural India are often unable to tangibly claim their rightful share. A study of 545 Hindu households found that only 6 percent of widows in the northern states and 14 percent in the southern states had successfully inherited land as daughters. Women who claim legal rights to their land often face shame and social ostracization. Ideals of the “good daughter” or “good sister,” who sacrifices her inheritance for her brothers, discourage women from claiming their property. Evidently, fears of damaging their family relationships illustrate how powerful social sanctions severely restrict their economic mobility. These norms perpetuate even beyond the personal family sphere into the general societal structure. Village councils and land records officials reinforce patriarchal norms by privileging male heirs over females, thus favoring traditional values over existing legal entitlements. These patterns demonstrate that institutionalized gender norms have historically overridden formal legal protections, limiting women’s access to the political, social, and economic benefits of land possession.

This gendered exclusion is particularly harmful towards women from Scheduled Castes, whose class status subjects them to intersecting forms of discrimination. For example, in the state of Punjab, economic inequalities persist as landlords strategically bypass reservation laws to deny Dalits their rightful claims to village common lands. While legislation such as the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act of 1964 specifically reserves one-third of village common land for Scheduled Castes, Dalits are intentionally prevented by dominant castes from utilizing the land and its resources. These village elites often find loopholes around legal provisions by methods such as hiring proxy Scheduled Caste candidates to bid on common land at auctions, undermining the rule that only Scheduled Caste members can participate. Since Dalits often struggle to afford high land rates, these proxy candidates are more likely to win auctions on behalf of dominant caste farmers. Gender inequalities intensify these challenges, as Dalit women face frequent sexual harassment by landlords and are denied essential resources from the communal land. Many rural women rely on these regions for sanitation facilities and dry wood for traditional stoves. Thus, land encroachment by upper castes denies them access to the basic resources necessary for cooking and female hygiene. These injustices, shaped by overlapping caste and gender discrimination, significantly reduce Dalit women’s ability to benefit from free-market reforms, which disproportionately favor land-possessing men. Understanding the foundational challenges of India’s Scheduled Castes is necessary when examining how neoliberal reforms have deepened their precarity.

4. Impact of Neoliberal Policies

Following India’s neoliberal reforms in the 1990s, the economic barriers faced by Dalits have been significantly exacerbated by privatization, decentralization of welfare programs, and the expansion of global corporate agribusiness. The World Inequality Database shows that by 2023, the wealth share of the top 1 percent of India’s population has risen sharply, while the share of the bottom 50 percent, including Scheduled Castes, has rapidly declined since 1991. Dalits have already struggled with access to common lands and capital due to institutionalized exclusion by dominant castes, which has hampered their ability to benefit from free-market policies.

In order to understand the consequences of these reforms, it is essential to examine the local experiences of those most directly impacted. A case study in the village of Ramhetpura, Uttar Pradesh, demonstrates how Dalit communities, particularly women, have suffered the most from decentralized neoliberal policies. When PDS (Public Distribution System) and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) became decentralized after 1991, individual states failed to engage with struggling communities and were not held accountable for their lack of implementation. ICDS was established as a nationwide government program that promotes child and maternal health, and PDS works to distribute subsidized food to low-income homes, primarily benefitting Scheduled Castes. Yet after the economic reforms, ICDS has been scarcely visible in impoverished villages, undermining support for Dalit mothers and their young children. Regarding PDS, the village shop in Ramhetpura has only been open two to three days a month and distributes limited rations. This frequently results in physical battles for food among crowds, and feelings of humiliation and loss of dignity among Scheduled Caste villagers. 

The privatization inherent to the 1991 reforms also increased the pre-existing fragility of labor protections for the Scheduled Castes. For example, Dalit labor unions feared that the structural changes embedded in the 2020 farm laws would eliminate the last remnants of government assistance. These laws promoted private agrarian markets outside government-regulated local markets, leading to widespread worries that the MSP (Minimum Support Price) system would be undermined. MSP is the government-guaranteed price for certain agricultural products, set annually to protect farmers from market fluctuations. If this system was abandoned, the livelihoods of workers from Scheduled Castes would be significantly jeopardized, as many rely on this system to survive and support their families. The laws also promoted contract farming, allowing large corporations to dominate the agricultural sector. Landless laborer organizations opposed contract farming, arguing it would generate more mechanized farms that would reduce demand for human labor and consequently displace rural Scheduled Castes. These reforms ultimately empowered private corporations while rendering local laborers obsolete. Although they were eventually repealed in 2021, the farm laws revealed the tangible consequences of broad economic policies that fail to consider social responsibilities. 

While the 2020 farm laws were later phased out, small farmers in the village of Ramhetpurah nonetheless experienced the consequences of a reduced Minimum Support Price. The government lowered prices to contain urban inflation, leaving farmers with “virtually no money in their pockets”. When harvests fail, small farmers who used their savings for input costs struggle to repay debts, often being forced to relinquish the little property they possessed and work for low wages in the fields. Ironically, these are the exact conditions that advocates of India’s economic reforms, such as policymakers and private industries, had believed would be alleviated for Scheduled Castes rather than exacerbated. Yet the dispossession of land and precarious working conditions of Dalit farmers have only been compounded by India’s neoliberal policies. 

Dalit women bear the largest burden of this intensified vulnerability. They constitute 50.4 percent of the total work force in Ramhetpura and are primarily concentrated in poorly paid labor. During seasonal food distress, women make the most sacrifices for their families by “eating less and fasting more.” This has resulted in widespread anaemia, which is present in 61.4 percent of all women aged 5-49, and 67 percent of all pregnant women, just in the rural city of Jalaun. These statistics demonstrate how patriarchal norms coupled with unjust working conditions disproportionately compromise the health of Dalit women. Evidently, this community has suffered significant physical distress as a result of India’s structural changes, rather than benefiting from the newfound free-market opportunities.

Singh and Kaur’s article on the state of Haryana further illustrates how the weak oversight of decentralized government programs has increased the exploitation of Dalit women. The 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a prime example of implementation issues for decentralized programs. The law requires basic workplace facilities such as toilets, first-aid for workers, and childcare facilities. However, most workplaces in rural India continue to lack these essential amenities, a deficiency disproportionately harming female laborers who serve as primary caretakers and require menstrual hygiene facilities. Among the 535 surveyed rural Dalit households, none reported the presence of childcare facilities in the workplace, and only 1.68 percent had medical care such as first-aid available, demonstrating the significant gap between policy and action following the 1991 reforms. Gaps have also emerged between the wage protections guaranteed by labor laws and the actual wages workers receive. Article 39 (d) of the Indian Constitution and the 1976 Equal Remuneration Act mandate equal pay for equal work. However, Dalit women are frequently paid less than men for the same work. In Singh and Kaur’s survey, 37.57 percent of women reported lower wages than men. Common issues expressed are payment delays, unpaid extra labor, and commission stolen by contractors. These shortcomings reveal how inequalities become heightened under decentralized government programs, where reduced bureaucratic monitoring after 1991 has resulted in the neglect of legal rights and benefits for Dalit women.

5. Counterarguments

Some scholars and policymakers have argued neoliberal reforms have benefited, rather than hindered, the mobility of Scheduled Castes. Acknowledging this perspective is crucial, as the economic success of a small percentage of Dalits is often cited to justify India’s reforms, overlooking the broader negative consequences experienced by vulnerable castes. For example, a common justification is Dalits’ increased presence in entrepreneurship, IT, and manufacturing sectors. This is evident through the rise of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI) and the success stories of Dalit entrepreneurs. Milind Kamble, founder of DICCI, stated that this era has enabled Dalits to become job givers and opened the door for their newfound economic agency. Neoliberal supporters also argue that the freedoms inherent to these reforms have liberated Scheduled Castes from caste hierarchies and economic setbacks. Furthermore, the share of small enterprises owned by women is found to be higher among Scheduled Castes and Tribes following the 1991 reforms, demonstrating increased entrepreneurship opportunities for Dalit women.

However, these gains have been limited to a small, educated Dalit elite, as caste status continues to shape access to education and economic mobility. The emphasis on individual responsibility and entrepreneurship that is central to free-market policies fails to account for deeply entrenched caste and gender identities, which significantly determines one’s ability to take advantage of these reforms. Though some Dalits have experienced socioeconomic progress and heightened job security, most remain subjected to strenuous, low-wage labor. Rather than increasing widespread opportunities for economic gains, the 1991 reforms have made caste “the social structure of capital accumulation,” meaning that one’s mobility depends upon the avenues offered by their caste identity.

Due to social exclusion and minimal access to education, Dalits are often limited to low-wage positions such as sewage work or shoe manufacturing, while upper castes dominate more skilled positions. In the corporate sector, hiring preferences often favor urban-educated candidates who are both fluent in English and trained in wealthy, elite private schools. Dalits, on the other hand, are frequently denied skilled positions, access to credit, and marketplace sites. Furthermore, businesses operated by Scheduled Castes have hardly increased since the passing of the 1991 reforms, as Scheduled Castes owned merely 9.8 percent of all enterprises in 2005. Evidently, the institutionalized inequalities stemming from traditional village caste orders overwhelmingly dictate access to capital in India’s increasingly neoliberal economy. 

A further argument supporting the 1991 reforms is the emergence of a Dalit middle class. Scholars Bharti and Kumar discuss how the 1990s brought about the rise of a Dalit middle-class youth and increased political consciousness. DICCI mentor, Chandra Bhan Prasad, argued that the rollback of regulation requirements over private industry created significant entrepreneurship openings for Dalits, where work ethic, rather than caste status, became the new means of achieving mobility. Despite his optimism, the social standing, lack of capital, and land dispossession of Dalits resulted in their exclusion from the benefits proposed by neoliberal development. Vulnerable rural communities were quickly displaced to make room for mega-development projects. Lacking the authority to reclaim privatized common lands, these groups experienced heightened economic insecurities. Additionally, decentralized employment and welfare programs have consistently failed to support communities in need. This is largely because state and local authorities have not been held accountable for providing Dalits with adequate government assistance.

Following the 1991 reforms, the Constitutional safeguards intended to protect Dalits—such as educational, cultural, economic, political, and public services—have also been significantly weakened. Large sums of land that could be allocated to landless laborers are instead diverted to large industries under SEZs (Special Economic Zones), which are designated regions with more lax economic regulations. The advantages of liberalization have fallen into the hands of individuals who already possess capital and land, while Dalits face heightened job insecurity and insufficient welfare support. Clearly, while economic liberalization has facilitated success stories for a small, educated group of Dalits, these benefits have failed to reach the masses, who remain institutionally excluded from land, capital, and political influence. 

6. Conclusion

Ultimately, as the 1991 reforms promoted land concentration in corporate hands and weakened existing welfare programs, India’s Dalit women faced increased economic hardships rather than better opportunities. Their experiences reveal the broader impacts of privatization and free-market development on economically insecure communities. Achieving meaningful change requires not only granting formal land recognition but dismantling the caste and gender hierarchies that uphold these inequalities and prevent economic reforms from benefiting marginalized groups. The experiences of Dalit women reflect those of disadvantaged populations across the Global South, whose struggles too often go unheard. Expanding research on the conditions of these underrepresented communities is essential to understanding the consequences of seemingly positive policy shifts. Furthermore, centering the agency of these groups allows for a deeper comprehension of successful models of resistance to historical and institutional inequalities. For example, grain banks in the village of Ramhetpura in Uttar Pradesh serve as an example of grassroots resistance against the failures of neoliberal governance in India. These banks are managed by local people to address regional food shortages. Their efforts are essential amidst exploitative government food security programs that fail to offer credit and loans to those in financial distress. Recognizing the vulnerabilities of structurally excluded communities is imperative to ensure economic growth is accompanied by justice, social responsibility, and accountability.