Dalits and Adivasis remain India’s economic underclass, mostly landless

Evidence

Dalits and Adivasis still remain at the bottom of the economic pyramid where they always were, below the Muslim community. We know that Dalits and Adivasis make up the majority of the millions of people displaced by mines, dams and other major infrastructure projects. They are the pitifully low-paid farm workers and the contract labourers who work in the urban construction industry. Seventy per cent of Dalits are by and large landless. In states like Punjab, Bihar, Haryana and Kerala, the figure is as high as 90 per cent. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 76

Categorization

• XREF: Direct correlate to caste-based land dispossession dynamics; resonates with what Weber and Marx predicted about status and class overlap.