Career Guidance for Scheduled Castes and Muslims in India

Challenges and Prospects for addressing Social Exclusion

Anita Ratnam, IAEVG International Careers Conferenece 2011

Contents

Part 1: Why talk about Dalits and MuslimsPart 2: Exclusion: Nuances & ImplicationsPart 3: Ways Forward for CG

Why talk about Dalits & Muslims?The Caste System

• Scheduled Castes / Dalits 17% of population, 168 million

• Varna and Caste System- Origins & Religious sanction

• The purity principle and graded inequality• Untouchables : outside the system, • Occupations and caste• Colonial Rule and Enumeration• 1232 Scheduled Castes GOI Act• Dalit / Harijan• Constitution & Society Dichotomy• Denied education till missionaries and

reformers in 1850s, Ambedkar• Live outside the main villages even today• Doing menial manual jobs-scavenging,

tanning, farm labour, construction- work is critical but undervalued,

• Untouchability & Atrocities continue ,25000 cases every year

Brahmin-priests

Kshatriya-soldiers

Vaishya - traders

Shudra-cultivators/artisans-

Untouchables- outside caste

Exclusion of Indian dalit from meaningful careers

• 50% under the poverty line Vs 34 % of Indians ..,,

• 86 % of dalis are landless & 50% of dalits are agricultural labourers Vs 20% of All Indians are AL

• Less than 10% of dalit households have access to safe drinking water& sanitation

• Dropout rate of Dalit children from primary schools 44.27% (UNICEF 2006); • Dalit Literacy 5 4.7 % All Indians 64% ( Census.2001)

• 2.2 % of dalits are college graduates, Professional Education*

• Among 800 accredited journalists, none from dalits.;No actor and actress in Bollywood (Film Industry).

•No dalit In top 1000 industrialists, No dalit CEOs

• 2 dalit Judges in Supreme Court Since 1947.

• Living with other castes & collective action led to emergence of SC middle class

• Inter caste Marriage…a issue in Indian Society

• Suicides in Higher Educational Institutions: Death Of merit

Scavenger

Exclusion of Indian Muslims from meaningful Careers

Sachar Committee2005: Exploding Myths

Muslims Others

Non enrollment & dropout in the 6-14 age group

25%

Above 17 and completed high school

17% 26%

Above 20 and holding degrees/diplomas

4% 7%

Completed techical education 1%

Salary earners 13 % 25%

Women in the 15-64 age in workforce

25% 44%

Self-employment 61% 55%

Poverty HCR ( urban and rural) 38%/31%

Women home based workers as % of women workers

70% 51%

Access to safe drinking water among rural households

10% 25%

Prison inmates 40%

Street vendors as % of male workforce

12 8

• Muslims138 million, 13.4% of population

• Islam in India, trade and the first mosque in 629 AD

• Mughal Rule established by Babar in 1526 and continued till Colonial Rule

• 1947 Partition, Violent Exodus• Ghettos and Enclaves post

independence• Secular State & Hindu Nation• From Outsiders to Anti Nationals

to Terrorists- Myth and Popular Discourse

• Caste within Muslims: Ashraf's, Ajlafs and Arzals( Dalit Muslims)

Why talk about Muslims

• Institutionalized Discrimination not addressed- no reservations; instead there is a..myth of appeasement

• Kashmir and Pakistan wars- have led to notion of Muslims as “enemy”

• Madrasas and Govt urdu schools lag behind , English third language a hindrance in the job market

• Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism & Violence against Muslims: Ayodhya- Gujarat Genocide ; Persistence Communal riots, Muslims live in Fear….. of being killed, raped, imprisoned, ridiculed.. Boycotted

• Muslim Religious fundamentalism and moral policing deny them human rights in the name of being good Muslim

• Technology & big business; displacement of Muslim traditional occupations

• Helplessness to change their image in society & media stereotyping;

• Corporate world equated with western culture,

Contents

Part 1: Why talk about Dalits and MuslimsPart 2: Exclusion: Nuances & ImplicationsPart 3: Ways Forward for CG

Blame it on them…. Muslims are fanatics, Dalits are dumb and dirty… they are the moral underclass….

deserve to be where they are.. Understanding Exclusion- Nuances & Implications…

• What is Exclusion, really ?( Prakash Loius), How do we even begin to understand the excluded ?

• Understanding relationships between individual, community and identity

• Understanding linkages between social group position and aspiration; socially disadvantaged groups have “lower” aspirations… or “different” aspirations

• Aptitudes , Affinities & Interests as culturally constructed,

• Perception of abilities: Self efficacy beliefs in the face of Islamophobia and Casteism

• Resources: Linkages between Knowledge-skills-mindsets/social location..

• Beliefs, World views and Imaginations: Indian belief in destiny and caste.. , Male youth in an imagined world ;( Jónsson,2008)

• Opportunities: Embedding of inequalities, institutionaizled discrimination, Glass ceilings, Mobility and transport issues ( Cass, Shove & Urry) … Differential advantage, Unequal childhoods ( Lareau,2003)

• Behaviour: Leong (2002) suggested that behaviour is an interaction between a person, the environment, the person’s culture, and the primary (or dominant) culture in the person’s environment…..

“

A Dalit youth who had passed electrical engineering with distinction, was forced to work in a factory for Rs. 2000 a month. His fellow worker was earning the same salary and doing the same work without even finishing his schooling. The first question he was during various interview, “What is your caste?” Martin Mc Wan , Dalit Shakthi Kendra

Exclusion Nuances & Implications

Imranas Story

When Imrana was raped by a relative, the religious leaders instead she leave her husband, children and work and marry the rapist.. Or face boycott from her community,, Imranas predicament is a tragic example of how young women are caught between longing for community and identity & their basic human rights and desires…

• My very first reaction to the Bomb blasts in Delhi was: Will it be Indian Mujahideen (IM) once again?. I felt like crying and shouting from the rooftop that whatever the terrorists have done in the name of Islam was wrong; that I am an Indian, who also happens to be a Muslim. I would not rejoice at the bleeding of my very own countrymen.

• Then, exactly six days later I was awakened by the phone. My colleagues were asking: Are you okay? There's an encounter going on in your area. …I was so embarrassed, uncomfortable, conscious of a strange guilt, defensive and uneasy….Then came the psychological bomb -- one of the “terrorists” caught following the police encounter was my namesake.. Saif Khalid (http://www.razarumi.com/)

Undesrtanding Exclusion- nuances and implications

How Inclusion Boomerangs

Anti reservation movements“ youth for equality” group of upper caste youth

Reservation in the Private Sector: Corporate Social Resistance ( CSR!!)

Reservation within reservation.. ( Madigas /holya caste within caste)Violent attacks on the successful- gujarat/, coimbatore/,Mangalore/,

BadanavaluSuicides- despair or protest

Laws /policies/programmes Vs deeprooted ideologies and cultures of inequality

How Technology Backfires

Traditional occupations gain respect through new nomenclature/ packaging ( uniforms!) …., but leave out the original “experts”..

Removal of stigma and occupational mobility across castes/religions is a welcome change…

But dangers of new exclusions when technology and capital are out of reach ( Gowda,2011)

Technology and De-skilling of society…Technology and Work- where is technology needed

and where is it deployed?

Understanding Exclusion- nuances and implications…in a globalising world

• Displaced and Redundant Masculinities in the Post Industrial Working Class( Mc Dowell)

• Or is it deeper …..Redundant Humanity? How do the young negotiate Skill vs Passion, Security Vs risk, Obligation Vs Autonomy.? ( Morgan,2008) Who is John without his passion?…

• Cooption or Accommodation? Numbers…….. Or texture….. • Even if integration is possible… is it the answer to exclusion?

What do we learn from the failed romance with multiculturalism?.

• What do we learn from Indias attempts at Secularism? The case of St Jopsehs college… real inclusion means changing the rules of the game, changing the game itself….

Work is culturally coded ..Disjuncts between material conditions & cultural codes (Cohen 2006)

Discord between parental models and todays world of work, Parents culture and youth culture creates questions and parent culture dominates the way work is understood (Nayak 2006)

Do all cultures /communities accept the ‘calculative attitude’ for career building? (Connell, 2000)

Rootlessness and occupational mobility as postmodern workers expected to constantly re-invent themselves.. The myth of Flexibility (Morgan)

Difficulties of Dalits in Business (Jodhka,2010)

individual

community

societyCulture/ideology

Policy/pradaugm

Replication of inequality and injustice

Does it have to be that way?

Contents

Part 1: Why talk about Dalits and MuslimsPart 2: Exclusion: Nuances & ImplicationsPart 3: Ways Forward for CG

Ways forward: Recognising Challenges in addressing social exclusion

Can CG Break the cycle of exclusion?

The State of Career Guidance in India todayFrom CET counseling! To NREGA

CG often combined with Scholarships for meritorious poor!

CG guided by a notion of development equated with growth in GDP through industrialisation, modern technology, capitalism, accumulation and global financial flows

The need to liberate “work” from “employment” to encompass multiple modes of surviving , of contributing to others needs is ignored

Development as culture, as civilisation, as happiness, as pluralism, harmony with nature, human compassion are rarely evoked in CG practice….. By these standards Gujarat (where manual scavenging by Dalits still exists and genocides of Muslims goes unpunished; where dams displaced more than 2 million people) is one of the most “developed “ states in India.

Can we really afford to have CG that rests on such a violent and narrow definition of development?

Non questioning of current development paradigm;

aims at fitting people into the system

Urban & middle class focussed; out of reach

of majority of dalits and muslims

Skewed towards Engg/Medicine/

Business and undervaluing

humanities; disregards traditional occupations

Focus on Psychometry and ignores

structural /cultural factors

Parents influennces/control not

questioned

CG and livelihood Planning as a discipline

is in its infancy

CG a tool for replication of inequalities

Ways forward for CG: Grounding Guidance & Counselling in a critical analysis of state and society

You cant go to school any more, child, we simply cannot afford it” says Champas grandmother. Champa is silent. Her eyes pleading. Grandma tries again, “Don’t worry dear, we will make you happy by finding you a good boy’…At this Champa bursts out…”how can I find a good boy if I am not educated?”

What is inclusion: A share of the pie? .. Or a new pie?

Strategies for inclusion. Challenges for Career Guidance

State exp on Education High dropouts signify lack of access and lack of faith in formal education to help in survival: How can CG motivate them to pursue education?

Expenditure for welfare and development

State not committed to substantive equity and rights. Vocabulary still dominated by welfare.Can CG promote a sense of rights and entitlements ?

Reservation/subsidies in Higher Education Helping the elite among the Dalits

and Muslims? Muppies?(Bennet2010)Can CG reach those on the edge?

Reservations in employment

Govt jobs shrinking/ private sector hostile to reservations.How can CG help fight discrimination in getting jobs and later in the workplace?

Resource allocation for self employed, wage labour and enterprises

Industrialisation and “development” Iitself is a cause of dispossessionPoverty line debates play havoc with who is called poor…What stand does CG take?

Ways forward: Understanding the excluded and helping Change Aspirations

Is CG, in the “business as usual” mode, really Enough ?

Careers guidance is the engine room of social mobility and social justice.” Dr Deidre Hughes ( ICG). But how do we deal with

• The traumatised & terrorised psyche?• The colonised mind? Remember Fanon?• Pride and shame in ones community and

culture?• Youth Suicides. As Despair and as

Protest?• Dalit/Islamic fundamentalism?• Young People flirting with terror and

crime?• Grappling with distrust, hate and

prejudice? • Sensitising the privileged to the rights of

the excluded?• Building new visions for self and

society?

Fettered Aspirations/unexplored aptitudes/ interests

Emotions of rage/fear/deapair/sahme

Negligible Opportunities and resources

Curtailing Beliefs /values

Experience of Social Exclusion

& individual psychological

disposition

Some inspiring examples

Theoretical Frameworks that can Guide us

• Understanding Exclusion & its psycho social impacts ( Prakash Louis,2007)

• Re-defining goals of CG to include changing and raising aspirations ( Watts,2001)

• Legitimising knowledges, skills, and economies of the excluded- (Bryan Hiebert,2005)

• Recognising Aspirations as shaped by material resources and not merely psychological dispositions (Jencks, Crouse and Mueser, 1983)

• Adopting Cultural Preparedness Approach ( Arulmani, G. 2009)• Seeing Hybrid identities ( Tabassum Khan,2009)• Harnessing Resilience and wisdom, cultural advantages• Developing Vocational Indigenous Psychology ( Leong 2011)• Recognising the need to expand the scope of guidance to policy

advocacy and mentoring/counselling• Understanding “determinants of aspirations” ( Gutman &

Ackerman 2008)• Understanding excluded groups, and tendencies for

overachievement and underperformance ( Mao & Tienda 1998). • Using critical pedagogy that includes interactive approaches,

active and reflective practice & using art /creative ways to reach the inner minds (Altman & De 2010)

• Addressing Institutional, Dispositional and Situational Barriers Clayton 1999)

The dalit students guidance portal : http://www.scststudents.org/- creatively combines information, advocacy, rights, support and mentoring to address the “inner mind”

The Azam Campus in Pune : innovative culturally sensitive and critical pedagogies

Sensitised and

Empowered youth leaders

• Working with Disadvantaged youth in a region

• Changing youth values & Aspirations

• Helping youth re-define work, relationships, affiliations and lifetsyles

• Linking youth leadership to activism

Creative Youth Work

Youth Social

Enterprises

• Training for Sustainable Livelihoods

• Putting social and Financial Capital at the base of the pyramid

• Pursuing Profits, purpose and social impact

Humanised

Professions

• Equipping marginalised youth enter key professions

• Building Professionals with Commitment to Peace & Justice in society

• Addressing Ethics and Inclusion in professions

Promotion of youth workDeveloping Youth StudiesTraining Youth Workers Vibrant

civil society

Samvada approach to inclusive and sustainable devlopment

Samvada’s Vruti Nota – Shaping Aspirations as an objective Caste-class bound, Religion and gender restricted• Family-

controlled• Unexamine

d aptitudesConventional notions of success, prestige/ status/ security

Limited Info about work and study options

Position of vulnerability and unclear abt self interest/achievement

Unrealistic planningHostility towards society and negative self image

From

Expression of individual ( re-examined) interests/values awareness of caste and class pressure and ability to negotiate

Understanding of work & study options and implications

• Transcending restrictions of religion Autonomous

Decision makingTowards Upward mobility, Inclusion & Justice

Awareness of Rights and responsibilities

Realistic career path • Critical

analysis of society/community

• Positve self image

To

Samvada CG Pedagogy and Process• Step 1:Reflections on self and society,

examination of values & beliefs, aspirations & motivations,

• Step 2 :Analysis of social structure and impact of socialisation on relationships, work choices, lifestyles and political affiliations

• Step 3: Understanding and Committing to Personal & Societal Change

Looking inolanota

Looking around/varenota

Looking ahead/munota

CG not a stand alone process, but an integral part of comprehensive youth work

Not based on initially expressed interests or aspirations as they are culturally and economically “programmed”

Providing space to re-think self & Society and then re-define dreams, aspirations and examine fears/ aptitudes

Introduce Career& Livelihood Planning modules only in Step 3

Helping understand politics embedded in work choices, career journeys and workplace issues

Mentoring, helping access scholarships and coaching.

(Ratnam and Issac, Samvada 2011)

THANK YOU