Page 31 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes Sen sees poverty better in terms of capability failure than in terms of the failure to meet the “basic
needs” of specified commodities.
In a more recent book, Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen clearly exposes “poverty as capability
deprivation”. He observes as follows :
1. Poverty can be sensibly identified in terms of deprivation; the approach concentrates on
deprivations that are intrinsically important (unlike low income, which is only instrumentally
significant).
2. There are influences on capability deprivation - and thus on real poverty - other than lowness
of income (income is not only instrument in generating capabilities).
3. The instrumental relation between low income and low capability is variable between different
communities and even between different families and different individuals (the impact of
income on capabilities is contingent and conditional).
The third issue is particularly important in considering and evaluating public action in reducing
inequality or poverty or depreciation. The real poverty is seen through capability deprivation.
Age, sex, illness or some disability can impediment capability building of a person. Preference for
a boy, rather than for a girl, is quite common in Indian families. Some castes and communities, are
not allowed to participate in some functions and activities. According to Sen, the capability
perspective enhances the understanding of the nature and causes of poverty and deprivation by
shifting primary attention away from means to ends, and to the freedoms to satisfy these ends.
Poverty in India
In rural India, caste hierarchy and landholdings intersected before Green Revolution. More or less
similar was association between caste and occupation. In other words, higher the position of a
caste, greater was its control on land and hold on lucrative occupations. Macro-structural changes,
including Green Revolution, have benefited rural people in general, although in an unequal
measure. During the last six decades since independence, several secular or non-caste occupations
have come up, on which caste-based access does not exist. Some of the new occupations, being
quite lucrative, are grabbed by the resourceful sections of society.
Marginal peasants and landless agricultural and manual workers suffered a lot in the past. However,
due to several employment schemes and enhanced daily wages, there is perceptible improvement
in the magnitude of alleviation of poverty. Migration to towns and cities has also reduced the
incidence of poverty.
The main cause of poverty is unemployment, including underemployment. Low wages and
dependence of members of a family on one or two earners also cause poverty. There are ever-
increasing and changing inequalities in both rural and urban settings. The rural poor have a
tendency to migrate to the urban centres, and thereby adds to urban unemployment or
underemployment, and to the problems of housing, electricity, water and sanitation. Squatters,
chawls, jhuggi-jhonpadis and jhonpadpatis are the common names for dwellings of the urban
poor. Mumbai and Kolkata inhabit nearly 30 per cent of its population in squatter settlements. The
growth of slums is quite rapid and enormous in metropolises and other big towns.
Oscar Lewis observes that cities, slums poverty and a specific culture are intertwined phenomena.
“Culture of poverty” is not just a matter of deprivation or disorganization, but a way of living
with given solutions for human problems. He has observed this in urban Latin America and New
York. Culture of poverty is a sub-culture in urban slums. He writes :
The lack of effective participation and integration in the major institutions of the larger society is
one of the crucial characteristics of the culture of poverty. Poverty itself is the root cause of the
culture of poverty. Uprootedness and isolation, meager wages, underemployment, lack of intimate
social life, personal insecurity, lack of access to civic amenities, etc., are some of the characteristic

26 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY