October 17, 2012
India's 'untouchable' caste has thrown its support behind Tesco and other foreign supermarkets' bid to open stores, believing they could help to lift them out of poverty.
The Congress-led government's decision to defy the opposition and some of its own coalition partners to allow Tesco and others to enter the country's vast market has provoked uproar and demonstrations by its powerful shopkeepers' lobby.
October 17, 2012
India's 'untouchable' caste has thrown its support behind Tesco and other foreign supermarkets' bid to open stores, believing they could help to lift them out of poverty.
The Congress-led government's decision to defy the opposition and some of its own coalition partners to allow Tesco and others to enter the country's vast market has provoked uproar and demonstrations by its powerful shopkeepers' lobby.
The government wants Tesco, Walmart and others to bring their know-how to revolutionise its antiquated farming sector and set up refrigerated warehouses to stop so much food rotting before it reaches the market.
Up to 40 per cent of all food produced in India rots on slow, hot roads. Ministers blame this and the high number of high caste middlemen for slowing down the journey to market and keeping food prices artificially high.
Their move has won the backing of many poor farmers, who will be able to bypass middlemen and sell their wares direct to supermarket buyers for higher prices.
Now it has also won the backing of India's most persecuted and marginalised groups, the so-called 'untouchables' or Dalits who traditionally do some of the country's dirtiest jobs.
The chairman of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce, which represents some of the Dalit community's most successful businesses, said Tesco and others could help break down caste barriers in business.
"At the moment the middlemen who control everything are high castes but there will be no role for middlemen and our firms will benefit. India's new shopping malls have created the maximum employment opportunities for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe – the Dalits. But the government has promised that the supermarkets will procure from small and medium enterprises and 20 per cent of them will be Dalit enterprises," said Milind Kamble, chairman of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce (DICC).
Although India's Dalits suffer brutal caste-related violence and discrimination in education and the workplace, they have become a powerful political force in recent years as parties have courted them for their votes.
Almost one in six Indians are Dalits – 166 million people, many of them concentrated in key states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh where the Dalit-based Bahujan Samaj Party was in power until earlier this year.
The Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce champions those 'untouchables' and other lower castes who are transforming their families' lives through enterprise. Many have become multimillionaires running successful companies and their slogan is 'fight caste through capital.' 
Courtesy: Daily Telegraph
