Social Divisions among the Indian Labouring Masses

Dalits and women in India are denied even minimum representation in policy making and accessing national resources. Highly under-represented in state machinery, media, and all higher wage employments, they are highly over-represented in low wage, highly labour intensive, and hazardous jobs. For them, facing exploitation and discrimination, not only by the state and the employers but also by their fellow workers, is a constant reality. The social, cultural, economic, and political systems in India are built to operate in such a way as to produce and reproduce the social divisions continuously and aggravate the problems of divisions among the labourers. The labour movements, which are supposed to oppose this unjust system, have generally ignored the issue of representation of dalits and women as they operate as part and parcel of the same social system that produces and reproduces ascriptive divisiveness.