Author – Mangesh Dahiwale

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar while conceptualizing a social center in Mumbai underlined the idea of more and more research on untouchability. The research in the area of caste and untouchability is an important activity to fight caste and Untouchability. While the general framework for understanding it is prepared by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar himself which was the basis for his fight, we can explore some of the new trends in the “Discrimination Studies” and the emerging field of studies: social stratification.

This note is a preliminary step to open up ideas, to begin with.

1. Ideas of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

Though Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was a researcher par excellence, many of his ideas were never examined. Recently, interesting academic work is being done on his ideas. This is an area that needs focussed intervention as many of the ideas were not arrived at by speculative means but through actual action in the world.

2. The nature of Caste Discrimination

Caste discrimination is not an easy system of discrimination to be understood. It is more complex than other forms of discrimination which Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar called graded inequality. Understanding inequality itself is a difficult exercise and something like graded inequality is difficult even more.

The graded inequality, in terms of understanding from the Game Theory, becomes even difficult to create a model due to so many players and stakes distributed gradually.

3. Concentrated discrimination or dispersed discrimination

In the study of race, a few researchers are debating on whether the discrimination is concentrated in a small group of people or dispersed among the large masses of people. What can we say about India?

Are some castes more discriminatory than other castes?

Is the caste discrimination concentrated among the few castes or dispersed in all the castes? What is the degree of dispersion?

What is the nature of this discrimination vis a vis an array of castes?

4. Psychological aspects of the caste system

It is found that the percentage of suicides is growing among Black girls due to racism and sexism. What would be the situation of, for example, of a Dalit girl?

The pandemic has thrown open many questions of trauma, personal distance, and mental health. What might be the situation of Dalits?
What is the role of compassion, particularly, self-compassion which negates the perception of others towards one’s self?

5. Policy studies

This is a vast study in itself to study the impact of various policies on the Dalits. One of the interesting studies will be to find correlations between different acts and policies with the social, economic, and political advancements of the Scheduled Caste.