Beyond Margin: Social Exclusion of Dalits in Rural India

Abstract

All societies in the world are stratified and Indian society is no exception to this. Like all societies, even Indian society has its own divisions with their lowly that is the scheduled castes (SCs) or dalits who are above 18 per cent of the total population. They have always remained below ‘pollution line and poverty line’ along with awful forms of untouchability against not an individual member of a group, but whole community of SC. They have been suffering from discrimination and facing exploitation even today from the upper-caste Hindus in socio-cultural, civic, economic and political spheres. So here, it becomes important to understand the social construction of the Indian society which is based on graded inequality, marginalisation and social exclusion. An ethnographic account is given to understand the social exclusion of SCin rural Maharashtra of India.