Neoliberal reform shrank public-sector jobs and redirected educated Dalits into NGOs

Evidence

Unsurprisingly, most Dalits in Indian NGOs are active at the field level. Dalit boys and girls appear to be doing social services for their communities, which is what Ambedkar expected educated Dalits to do, and Dalit communities therefore perceive such workers quite favourably—more favourably, certainly, than Dalit politicians, who are often seen as engaged in mere rhetoric. The NGO sector has thus become a significant employer for many Dalits studying for their humanities degree, typically capped with a postgraduate degree in social work. Further, as the prospects of public-sector jobs have decreased since the government’s neoliberal reforms of the mid-1980s and later, the promise of NGOs as employers assumed great importance. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 562

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how economic restructuring reshaped the Dalit movement from political parties toward NGO-mediated service work.
• XREF: connects to: Modern human rights NGOs narrowed their agenda to civil liberties under neoliberal ascendancy — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 148; Humanitarian NGOs helped shift blame for poverty onto Third World states. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 381; Humanitarian NGOs like LSF emerged partly to discredit Third Worldist economic critique — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 394 (+4 more)