[Dalits
still lag behind the rest of India , but they have experienced gains as the country’s economy
has expanded. A recent analysis of government survey data by economists at the University
of British Columbia found that the wage gap between other castes and Dalits
has decreased to 21 percent, down from 36 percent in 1983, less than the gap
between white male and black male workers in the United States . The education gap has been halved.]
By Lydia Polgreen
Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times |
But on a
recent afternoon, as Mr. Khade’s chauffeur guided his shimmering silver BMW
sedan onto that same street in a village in the southern state of Maharashtra ,
village leaders rushed to greet him. He paid his respects at the temple, which
he paid to rebuild. The untouchable boy had become golden, thanks to the newest
god in the Indian pantheon: money.
As the
founder of a successful offshore oil-rig engineering company, Mr. Khade is part
of a tiny but growing class of millionaires from the Dalit population, the 200
million so-called untouchables who occupy the very lowest rung in Hinduism’s
social hierarchy.
“I’ve gone
from village to palace,” Mr. Khade exclaimed, using his favorite phrase to
describe his remarkable journey from the son of an illiterate cobbler in the
1960s to a wealthy business partner of Arab sheiks.
The rapid
growth that followed the opening of India ’s economy in 1991 has widened the gulf between rich and
poor, and some here have begun to blame liberalization for the rising tide of
corruption. But the era of growth has also created something unthinkable a
generation ago: a tiny but growing group of wealthy Dalit business people.
Some
measure their fortunes in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a handful, like
Mr. Khade, have started companies worth tens of millions. With their new wealth
they have also won a measure of social acceptance.
“This is a
golden period for Dalits,” said Chandra Bhan Prasad, a Dalit activist and
researcher who has championed capitalism among the
untouchables. “Because of the new market economy, material markers
are replacing social markers. Dalits can buy rank in the market economy. India is moving from a caste-based to a class-based society,
where if you have all the goodies in life and your bank account is booming, you
are acceptable.”
Milind
Kamble, a Dalit contractor based in the city of Pune in Maharashtra State , said that out of the 100 or so members of the Dalit
Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in his city, only one was in business
before 1991.
“We are
fighting the caste system with capitalism,” he said.
An
Immobile Society
Bollywood
may love a rags-to-riches story, but historically India is not a nation of Horatio Alger stories. Social and
economic mobility are limited, a product of India ’s layers of cultural legacies: the Hindu caste system, the
feudal hierarchies established by its many invaders and the imperial
bureaucracy imposed by Britain . The idea that with hard work and determination, anyone
could succeed found scant purchase here.
It
established affirmative action for Dalits and tribal people in politics and
government jobs and education. The practice of physical untouchability, which
prevented Dalits from walking on the same streets as upper-caste people,
drinking from the same wells or even looking such people in the eye, has
virtually disappeared, though it remains in practice in some remote areas.
Dalits
still lag behind the rest of India , but they have experienced gains as the country’s economy
has expanded. A recent analysis of government survey data by economists at the University
of British Columbia found that the wage gap between other castes and Dalits
has decreased to 21 percent, down from 36 percent in 1983, less than the gap
between white male and black male workers in the United States . The education gap has been halved.
Another survey conducted
by Indian researchers along with professors from the University of Pennsylvania
and Harvard showed that the social status of Dalits has risen as well — they
are more likely to be invited to non-Dalit weddings, to eat the same foods and
wear the same clothes as upper-caste people, and use grooming products like
shampoo and bottled hair oil.
For most
of India ’s history after independence, the government was the only
thing that could improve the Dalits’ lot. For nearly all Indians but especially
for Dalits, a government job, even a low-level one, was the surest ticket out
of poverty, guaranteeing education, housing, a salary and a pension. Few in the
socialist government or in India ’s generally risk-averse society saw entrepreneurship as an
attractive option.
But that
has started to change. Since 1991, when India ’s economy opened to the world and began its astonishing
growth trajectory, hundreds of thousands of new businesses have been created,
leaving an opening for millions of people who never imagined that owning their
own business was even possible. A small handful of Dalits were uniquely poised
to take advantage.
Caste is a
delicate subject in Indian life, spoken of only sotto voce. The once strong
connection between caste and occupation loosened long ago, and generalizations
are risky, but certain cultural affinities remain.
Knowledge-based
businesses like information technology have attracted large numbers of
Brahmins, the traditional learned caste. The business castes tended to focus
more on retail and wholesale trade than manufacturing. Messy industries like
construction are closer to the traditional occupations of the lowest castes.
One Dalit
businessman in Pune has turned the traditionally undesirable work of pest
control into a million-dollar company. Mr. Kamble made his fortune in India ’s building boom. Dalits have started small technology
companies, installing networking equipment, while others have set up factories
to make water pipes and sugar.
“In this
complex society, Dalits are turning disadvantage into an advantage,” Mr. Prasad
said.
Starting
From Nothing
Ashok
Khade’s rags-to-riches story stands out because of how completely he
transformed himself, with some luck and some help from India ’s opening economy, from an illiterate cobbler’s son to a
multimillionaire player in the booming oil services industry.
He was
born in a mud hut in Ped in 1955, one of six children. His parents were day laborers who toiled in upper-caste farmers’
fields for pennies. His father would often travel to Mumbai, then known as Bombay , to work as a shoe repairman. He came from a family of
Chamhars, a caste at the very bottom of the Hindu hierarchy. Their traditional
job was to skin dead animals.
They were
poor and always hungry. One day, his mother sent him to fetch a small bag of
flour on credit from a nearby flour mill so she could cook flatbread for
dinner. But it was the monsoon season and Ashok slipped in the mud. The
precious flour landed in a puddle.
“I came
home weeping,” he said. “My mother was weeping. My brothers and sisters were
hungry. There was nothing in the house.”
But that
hunger gave him drive. “That was my starting day,” he said.
Mr. Khade
got his first big break that year, when he won admission to a school run by a
charity in a nearby town. Away from the village and its deeper caste prejudice,
he thrived. Upper-caste teachers nurtured him, and he strived to impress them.
But caste
was not entirely absent. In the school’s musty register from 1973, the year he
finished high school, next to his name is his caste: Chamhar.
All
through school, poverty gnawed at him. Students had to provide their own paper
to write their exams, and one day he found himself without even a few pennies
to buy the necessary sheets of foolscap. A teacher tore pages from the
attendance ledger. Too poor to buy string to tie the pages together, he used a
thorn from a tree. None of it mattered. He graduated near the top of his class.
Setbacks
and Luck
Mr.
Khade’s elder brother, Datta, had managed to get an apprenticeship as a welder
at a government-owned ship building company, Mazagon Dock, in Mumbai. He
persuaded young Ashok to move to the big city. The tiny room where Datta lived
with relatives was already full, so Ashok slept for a time under a nearby
staircase on a folding cot.
Mr. Khade
dreamed of becoming a doctor and studied at a local college. But Datta, who
supported the entire family, begged his younger brother to drop out of school
and start working. Datta helped Ashok get a job as an apprentice draftsman at
Mazagon Dock.
What
seemed like a setback turned out to be a stroke of luck. His flawless drafting
skills and boundless appetite for hard work won him promotions. In 1983, he was
sent to Germany to work on a submarine project.
One day,
he saw the pay slip of one of his German colleagues, who earned in one month
more than Mr. Khade earned in a year. “I thought about my family’s needs,” he
said. “My sisters needed to get married. I knew I could do better than working
for someone else.”
When he
returned from Germany , he began laying the groundwork to start his own company.
The risk was enormous, and it was almost unheard of to leave a steady job to
start a company. But his two brothers were expert offshore welders. They had
good contacts from their years at Mazagon Dock.
And the
economy was changing after years of stagnation as the 1991 reforms began to
reduce the bureaucracy’s control of the economy and stimulate growth. “It was
obvious there was a chance to make a lot of money,” he said.
The
brothers used their savings to finance the small subcontract jobs they began
with, and in 1993 they got their first big order, for some underwater jackets
for an offshore oil rig, from Mazagon Dock.
Mr.
Khade’s hunch was right, and his timing was impeccable. Faster growth meant India ’s appetite for fossil fuels grew ever more rapacious. His
company, which builds and refurbishes offshore oil rigs, has expanded rapidly
and he is expanding to the Middle
East . He recently signed a deal
with a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi to work on oil wells there, and he is building what will
be India ’s biggest jetty fabrication yard on the Maharashtra
coast. He has 4,500 employees, and his company is valued at more than $100
million.
His two
brothers are now in politics — one leads the Ped village council, the other is
a member of the state assembly, both holding seats reserved for Dalits. Mr.
Khade has bought vast tracts of land around his village, the same plots where
his mother, now 86, used to work for upper-caste farmers for pennies a day. Now
she dresses in expensive silk saris, rides in a chauffeured car and wears gold
jewelry. The sons of upper-caste families now work for Mr. Khade’s company. By
any measure he is a man who has made it, and big.
“An
untouchable boy the business partner of a prince?” Mr. Khade said. “Who would
believe that is possible?”
Mr. Khade
probably would not be in business with a prince had he not attended a
networking cocktail reception hosted by the Dalit Chamber of Commerce and
Industry at the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai this year. There he met the
Indian businessman who introduced him to the Arab sheik, who helped him to
globalize his company.
These
kinds of connections are crucial to the nascent Dalit business community.
Because Dalit businessmen often lack the social connections that lead to
business ideas, loans and other support, a group of Dalit entrepreneurs created
the chamber in 2005. It aims to build those networks so Dalit business leaders
can help one another grow. The group has about 1,000 members, all of whom run
companies with an annual turnover of at least $20,000.
It
recently organized a meeting where Dalit businessmen pitched ideas to Tata
Motors, one of India ’s biggest car companies. Mr. Kamble, the Dalit contractor,
said that of the 10 companies that attended, 4 had signed deals and 4 more were
in negotiations. “There was a time when people like us could not even approach
a company like Tata Motors,” he said. “Now we go meet them with dignity, not
like beggars. We are job givers, not job seekers.”
The group
has persuaded the government to embrace contracting preferences for Dalits like
the ones that have helped businesses owned by women and minorities in the United States . It also seeks to persuade private companies to embrace
affirmative action policies that would create more jobs and business
opportunities for Dalits.
Few
Options for Women
Despite
the success of men like Mr. Khade, a Dalit entrepreneur is still much more
likely to be a poor woman who has no choice but to start a small, low-profit
margin business because so few other options are open to her, said Annie
Namala, a researcher and activist who has worked on Dalit issues. A survey
completed this year of Dalit women entrepreneurs in Delhi and Hyderabad found that most made less than $100 a month from their
businesses.
“These are
basically survival enterprises,” Ms. Namala said. “These women would prefer a
steady job, but no jobs are available so they start a small business and work
very hard with very little return.”
Despite
gains for some Dalits, a recent paper from the Harvard Business
School that used government data from 2005 found that even after
the economic liberalization, Dalits “were significantly underrepresented in the
ownership of private enterprises, and the employment generated by private
enterprises.”
Even for
those who have had wild success in business, social acceptance has proved
harder to attain. While wealth insulates them to some degree from lingering
caste prejudice, barriers remain even for rich Dalits.
Names
often reveal a person’s caste, so one Dalit businessman who installs solar
water heaters changed his last name because he worried that upper-caste people
would not want a Dalit installing an appliance associated with personal hygiene
in their homes.
Even Mr.
Khade, with all his wealth and newfound status, does not want to offend
potential upper-caste clients. His business card reads Ashok K, leaving off the
last name that reveals what he is: a Dalit.