Seated in his modest office-cum-factory a little beyond Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, 36-year-old Sushil Kumar juggles between two cell phones, talking to clients and suppliers, to keep his flourishing business of sheet metal and automotive spare parts up and running. With the grinding metal sounds and metallic shrieks providing an apt ambience, Kumar, a man of few words, takes a break from his ever-buzzing phones to talk about his R40-crore turnover business. The fact that Kumar belongs to the traditionally oppressed caste of Dalits is now just a minor and negligible part of his life and identity as a successful entrepreneur, and he calls himself ?just another businessman?, who still hasn?t made it as big as he?d like to. And maybe he?s right. His R40-crore turnover enterprise seems mighty impressive on a social barometer, but there are other Dalit entrepreneurs running businesses worth hundreds and even thousands of crores elsewhere in the country.
Two decades after liberalisation first kicked in, changes, although far and few, seem to be emerging with a crop of highly successful and prosperous Dalit businesses dotted across sectors. With fire in their bellies, ambition guiding them forward, sheer grit and the refusal to be satisfied with a life revolving around reservations doled out by the government, these men and women are carving their own distinctive niche in the great India Inc story. They?ve gambled with age-old prejudices and emerged victorious.
So, no surprises then, when one comes across Aashok Khade, son of a migrant cobbler in Mumbai, who today runs an offshore engineering firm with over R550 crore in turnover, or a 68-year-old Ratibhai Makwana, who fought his way through a biased system over the decades to have today diversified businesses in plastics, polymers, sugar and packaging worth R300 crore.
Then there is Kalpana Saroj, who is turning around an embattled Kamani Tubes Limited in Mumbai, which now has a R110-crore turnover, and Sanjay Kshirsagar whose passion for making speakers translated into a speaker manufacturing company, and has now ventured into construction and mineral water businesses, clocking a total turnover of a little over R100 crore.
They even have a 1,000-member strong business forum now, the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI). ?Business is the way out for discrimination to really end. If we as a nation succeed in making more and more entrepreneurs out of Dalits, discrimination would die a natural death. I am an SC and everyone knows it from my surname. But 700 employees from all possible castes work in my company, a company started by an achhoot (untouchable). Can there be a bigger social revolution?? asks Pune-based Milind Kamble, CMD of the R70-crore Fortune Construction Company, and the founder chairman of DICCI.
Kamble, a civil engineer by qualification was inspired by the likes of FICCIs and CIIs and together with five other Dalit businessmen, laid the foundation of DICCI to ?have a strong forum, facilitate business maturity and intra-community networking, resource sharing and opportunities.? DICCI, till last year had just about 250 members, but an expo organised by the forum in June 2010 turned the tide and over 750 new members have joined the ranks. ?The numbers will just swell now,? says a pleased Kamble.
Pride is a sentiment that comes complimentary with success in most cases. And pride is what one can sense when these Dalit corporate honchos talk about their lives, struggles, debacles and, of course, triumphs. ?We were extremely poor and I was at a government hostel away from home. I once walked 25 km from the hostel to my village in the Sangli district and ate peanuts from a bush as I didn?t have any money. Now I take the same road to my village in a R80-lakh BMW, and bow my head at the place where that bush once stood. We faced extreme discrimination and weren?t allowed to use the village well, or enter the temple, and even if someone had to give food and water to us, they?d make sure that they didn?t touch us at all while doing so,? says Ashok Khade, 46, CEO of the R550-crore Das Offshore Engineering.
Khade moved to Mumbai in 1972 after completing his schooling and worked at the Mazgaon docks while pursuing a part-time diploma in mechanical engineering. He started his business in 1995. Khade?s pitch rises with a lump of emotion in his throat when he mentions that six years ago, he spent R25 lakh to renovate the same village temple, which was out of bounds for his family when he was a child.
Today 4,500 employees work for his company, and an office in Dubai is on the cards in the next one month. While others don?t have stories as heart-wrenching as Khade, they mostly speak of hard toil in the face of social and professional adversities. And while most have employees from across the caste spectrum, in their own way these entrepreneurs are trying to pave the way for uplifting their own community through business and employment.
?More than 2,000 people from our caste are getting work because we helped them set up plastic factories, which could source raw material from us. We assisted them with technical help and also set up handlooms along with plastic factories. Almost half of our employees are also Dalits,? says Ratibhai Makwana. He is 68, but this veteran Dalit entrepreneur can describe the timeline of his business right down to precise dates. Son of a hide and skin dealer in pre-1947 India, Makwana started out with a leather business and is today heading a R300-crore empire. Similarly, Ludhiana-based Malkit Chand, owner of the R70-crore Janagal Exports proudly proclaims that 90% of his workforce is from the Dalit community.
While this wave of self-proclaimed Dalit Capitalism is being celebrated no holds barred by DICCI, as obvious from a recent party to celebrate the launch of DICCI?s Mumbai chapter, some Dalit activists have been quite critical of such celebration of Dalit Capitalism while atrocities and discrimination against Dalits are still largely prevalent, as per recent reportage.
DICCI has also been accused of ghettoising Dalit entrepreneurship, considering that caste is the only common factor. Anand Teltumbde, grandson of BR Ambedkar, recently came out strongly against DICCI in the media. However, Dalit political commentator Chandra Bhan Prasad contests such arguments vehemently. According to him, Dalit entrepreneurs need that initial thrust in association to have a strong industry body, which can work for the interest of the community. ?The imagery of Dalits has to change. General perception is that Dalits can?t do anything without help. But here are Dalit businessmen employing hundreds and thousands of employees and becoming job givers instead of being job seekers,? he says. He concedes that, by and large, these handful of success stories can?t by any means be representative of the condition and plight of a common Dalit. ?But we also need to celebrate the success of these entrepreneurs. If you look at the US, black entrepreneurs are celebrated there. Masses need inspiration and role models and this celebration will only help the Dalit masses,? he adds.
DICCI, in a short span of time has attracted quite a bit of attention. From getting featured in the national and international press to DICCI representatives meeting planning commission deputy chairman MS Ahluwalia, and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) looking to forge close cooperation with the Dalit forum, last few months have really been eventful. ?We met MS Ahluwalia in Delhi in January and he assured us that the government would do its bit in helping more Dalits become entrepreneurs by providing them with funds on low interest rates and technical skills to set up and run their businesses independently. We as DICCI members don?t want any reservation for ourselves and our children. Let it be given to those who are in dire need of it. We just hope that the government takes the entrepreneurial approach towards uplifting the oppressed communities seriously,? says Sanjay Kshirsagar, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur with over R100 crore of businesses in speakers and construction. To this, Makwana adds that Ahluwalia assured the DICCI representatives that R500 crore would be earmarked for business loans for Dalits in the next Union budget.
While these might still be deemed as early days for Dalit entrepreneurship in the country, these few success stories can?t be left unacknowledged. They can be rejected as non-representative of the common Dalits or can be considered a ray of hope, a silver lining. These handful of Dalit entrepreneurs are hoping that the weather would just clear up from here.
An enabling environment nurtures dalit businesses
Dalit entrepreneurs haven?t sprouted overnight in this country. It has been a long journey. While it?s primarily due to the grit and determination of Dalit entrepreneurs, an enabling environment, created by economic reforms ushered in 20 years ago, has also helped to some extent. Though detailed pan-Indian studies of the various facets of businesses run by the traditionally-oppressed castes are yet missing, a few studies available reflect the presence and the growth of that enabling environment. And this is something that is creating new social equations for this section of society, which was earlier considered to be only at the mercy of caste-based reservations by the government and vote-bank politics.
According to the 61st round of NSS in 2004-05, more than 29% of all the urban Scheduled Caste households were self-employed. An Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) working paper titled Dalits in Business: Self-Employed Scheduled Castes in Northwest India, based on field studies conducted at Panipat (Haryana) and Saharanpur (UP), shows that self-employment and entrepreneurship among Dalits has seen a steady rise over the last two decades.
The study, based on field work in 2008 and released in November 2010, states, ?of the total universe of 321 only 10 (a little above 3%) were relatively old enterprises. The growth of Dalit entrepreneurship took-off in both the settings only during the decade of 1980, and more vigorously after 1990s.?
The study further states that only around 12% of those surveyed reported the current market value of their enterprise being less than R50,000. In what clearly seems to be a big positive, while only 13% reported having started their businesses with more than R1 lakh, the proportion of those who assessed the current value of their businesses being above R1 lakh was nearly 30% of the entire sample and two-thirds of those who responded to this question. The number of those who reported annual turnover above R1 lakh was also significant with 28% reporting a turnover of R1-5 lakh and another 6% reporting it to be between R5 and R50 lakh, and two respondents reporting in excess of R50 lakh. However, the study also mentions certain lacunae like extremely weak linkages of Dalit entrepreneurs with the banking system and low seed capital in most cases (41% starting business with the initial investment of less than R25,000), derived mainly from personal savings.
Apart from the entrepreneurial and self-employed Dalits, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) conducted a caste census of India Inc last year to get a better sense of affirmative action practised so far by the private sector. The findings of the survey, which were first reported by The Indian Express in January, 2011, provide a mixed bag with certain states showing promising results while others lagging. The private sector in southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala has on its rolls a high percentage of SCs and STs. In the north, Delhi and Haryana buck the general trend where the gaps between Scs and STs at work and their representation in the population are significantly higher. The CII survey in Chandigarh, Punjab and Rajasthan shows that SC and ST proportion is 25-50% lower than their strength in the total population.
Interestingly, companies in the least industrialised eastern region, and where jobs are far and few, have the highest percentage of Scs and STs. In Bihar, SCs and STs together constitute a fourth of the total workforce, whereas they form just 16.6% of the state?s total population. Chhattisgarh is a shade better with more number of factories, but half its workforce comprises Scs and STs, comparable to its total SC and ST population of 43.4%. Maharashtra was an exception. CII members in the state employ 20.72 lakh people, almost 57% of the total employee base considered in the survey. But SC and ST proportion in the workforce is one-fourth of their percentage in the total population. Also, in Madhya Pradesh, which ranks 11 in industrialisation and workforce, SCs and STs account for 11% of the private sector?s total staff strength, less than a third of their strength in state?s population. All in all, while it?s clear that still a long distance has to be covered which keeps the affirmative action and job reservations in private sector debate alive, the survey also reflects that a good beginning has been made.
The last 20 years have also seen substantial shifts in the lives of Dalits, ?consistent with a growing sense of empowerment and opportunity?, according to a survey that contrasts social practices and living conditions for Dalits in 1990 and 2007. Conducted in the Azamgarh and Bulandshahar districts of Uttar Pradesh, the survey findings assert major changes in grooming, eating and ceremonial patterns of Dalits, ?signaling higher social status through adoption of higher status consumption patterns?.
Respondents also reported changes in the accepted behaviours between castes, with rapid erosion in discriminatory processes, and more mainstreaming of professions and regular vocations among Dalits being commonplace now. The survey was conducted jointly by Devesh Kapur of University of Pennsylvania, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett of Harvard University and D Shyam Babu of Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary studies. The authors of the survey reject the generalised notion that market reforms have increased economic disparity and thus made inequality steeper, while stating that conclusions based exclusively on material well-being and consumption expenditure are misplaced as they gloss over socially structured inequalities.
While none of the surveys and studies can claim to be representative of Dalits and their conditions from all parts of the country, and there is still great room for debate and action going forward, some things are changing somewhere. As India continues to grapple with the critical issue of social and economic emancipation of this traditionally-oppressed stratum of society, this half-empty glass is also half-full.