A report by Oxfam highlights widespread discrimination in India. Despite their numerical size, scheduled castes and tribes only get a quarter of all farm credit.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – In India’s urban areas, salaried workers from Scheduled castes (SCs) and Scheduled tribes (STs) earn on average 5,000 rupees less per month than others, while Muslim workers earn 7,000 rupees less than non-Muslims, this according to the India Discrimination Report 2022 by Oxfam.
Considering that the average monthly salary is just over 20,000 rupees (US$ 250), the wage gap is substantial for Muslims, SCs and STs. In addition, in 2019-20, only 15.6 per cent of the Muslim urban population aged 15 and over was engaged in regularly salaried jobs, compared to 23.3 per cent of non-Muslims.
“For salaried workers during Covid, Muslims emerge as the most affected group,” the report says. “[I]n rural areas, [they] recorded the maximum decline in earnings of 13 per cent, while it was close to 9 per cent for others”.
“Caste also acts as a major barrier while accessing credit for agriculture despite many agricultural labourers being from SC or ST communities. STs and SCs receive less than a quarter of the credit shares that the forward castes receive”.