Context

Despite outlawing caste-based discrimination in 1950, Dalits still get discriminated against when applying for programs such as microloan schemes which are actually established to help them.

About

Challenges faced by Dalit Women:

• Plethora of issues:Dalit women continue to suffer from a high degree of poverty, gender discrimination, caste discrimination, and socioeconomic deprivation.
• Violence: Girls face violence at a younger age and at a higher rate than women of other castes.
• Others
  • Exploitation by dominant castes
  • Lack of justice
  • Workplace violence

How caste plays its role in occupation?

• Caste is essentially the stratification of peopleinto a rigid occupational hierarchy.
• Dalits who are the last in the list, often called "untouchables" are excluded from all jobs except the worst paid and most degrading — on the pretext of maintaining the spiritual purity of those in higher castes.

 An attempt to help

• In India, microloan programs have been embraced as a poverty-reduction policy.
• Microloans are offered by for-profit, not-for-profit and government-owned banks.
  • The Reserve Bank of India regulates the sector and acts as a guarantor of microloans given by banks under national government-sponsored poverty alleviation schemes.
  • The Reserve Bank of India underwrites incentives including interest rates about half that offered to other women.

What are the problem with microloans?

• Poor implementation of microfinance programs
• lack of outcomes for Dalit women entrepreneurs in India
• Discrimination at the branch level
• Being humiliated when applying for a microloan — of help being refused when filling in a form, of being told not to sit on the same chairs as other bank customers, and of their application being rejected for no good reason.

How caste certificates ‘too’ creates hurdle?

• To qualify for a program to assist Dalits, they had to prove they're a Dalit by supplying a government-issued caste certificate.
• But this certificate then became the means for them be identified as Dalits and discriminated against.