Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/193310 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12016
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate the impact of community power on the practice of untouchability in rural India. We model two-dimensional simultaneous group conflict over social norms, wherein an upper and backward (OBC) caste Hindu bloc contests the 'scheduled' castes (SCs) over the extent to which behavioural norms within the village should legitimise untouchability, even as it seeks to impose Hindu values/rituals on non-Hindus. We find that any increase in the collective resource endowment (power) of this bloc will increase the likelihood of an upper caste or OBC Hindu household practising untouchability. An increase in that of SCs, or, more interestingly, of Muslims and Christians, will reduce it. Strikingly, a marginal redistribution of resources from OBCs to upper castes may reduce it as well. Identifying a community's power with a multiplicative combination of its population share and land share, we find support for these hypotheses in data from the India Human Development Survey 2011-12.
Subjects: 
caste
social norm
ritual purity
discrimination
untouchabilitly
land redistribution
caste power
India
JEL: 
D72
D74
J71
J78
Z1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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