Caste and Undergraduate Economics Syllabus in Indian Universities

Dr. Debolina Biswas| January 01, 2022 | Published Online

Undergraduate Programmes can be considered as the stepping stone of higher education as well as the professional stage of any learners.  Indian education system allows a student to study a subject as honors at the undergraduate level where the students get the opportunity to learn the subject matter in greater detail in the entire duration of the programme. The syllabus of any undergraduate course primarily provides an understanding of what is to be expected from this particular discipline of the subject . It contains the broad topics, sub-topics, the list of books, and articles to be covered in the course duration. The syllabus can be considered as formal documentation of any course.  In a way, just by eyeballing the syllabus of any course one can form the idea of the expected outcome from taking the course. Through this particular note, I intend to focus on the undergraduate economics syllabus taught in various colleges and Universities in this country. I have consulted the syllabus of the University of Calcutta, the University of Delhi, the University of Kerala and the Mumbai University as representatives of the undergraduate economics syllabus. A quick review of the Economics undergraduate syllabus gives this impression that there are core/compulsory papers and elective papers. Core papers constitute Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Mathematical economics, Statistics, Trade, Indian Economy, Econometrics, Public Finance, Development Economics. While core papers remain as same throughout the country, the basic differences come from the range of electives offered by various institutions. The basic search with the word CASTE through this syllabus shows that the word is missing from the set of core papers whereas it appeared only once in an elective paper namely Economics of Health and Education offered by University of Delhi.  The rest of the syllabuses I consulted  are silent on the issue of caste. This silence gives the impression that caste as a concept and reality of Indian Society is not relevant to this discipline and certainly not important enough to be introduced at the undergraduate level. 

This calls for further exploration to understand what are the important concepts and theories that are offered to economics undergraduate students. This is discussed primarily by taking into account certain core papers which provide the basic theoretical tenet of the discipline. Additionally, the text books of these core papers are also considered as these textbooks play an instrumental role in that process of learning and understanding the theories.

At the undergraduate level students mostly get introduced to the Neoclassical or marginalist school of thought. Most of the core papers are also based on this school of thought.  The very first class as well as the first year of learning economics begin with the paper called Microeconomics which is heavily focused on the neoclassical ideas or the marginalist approach. The starting point of the marginalist approach  is with an individual who is considered as a representative economic agent. The basic assumption is that the economic agent is rational. This idea is used to develop the consumer and producer theory. The consumer maximezes utility and the producer maximizes profit. It gives the impression that if everyone is doing their maximization, that should produce a harmonious situation. Another important aspect of this theoretical understanding is that each economic agent make decision at margin; i.e. whether to buy the extra unit of a commodity, would depend upon whether the extra unit of consumption would fetch the benefit which is equivalent to the extra unit of cost incurred . 

This understanding of individual as representative is also drawn to Macroeconomics where the individual activities are applied to a country. Also in this particular paper, the Govt. as an economic agent gets introduced. The marginalist approach would tell us that in an economy there would be full employment and government should not spend much.   

Another important  core paper is Development Economics where how to conceptualize the idea of development is discussed extensively. It provides an understanding of  how the underdeveloped countries should design economic policies to join the league of the  developed nations.  One of the important policy prescriptions this paper offers  is that the country should find out ways to increase income per head which would eventually increase the standard of living of people. However it also recognizes the limitations of this policy of  ‘only increasing income’  and  it is discussed that income is necessary but not sufficient to have a meaningful life. This could be an entry point to discuss how the concept of  caste might create hindrance to achieve a meaningful life even if the income criterion gets fulfilled. But it  doesn’t really delve into the discussion of caste.  

Indian Economy is a paper where the trajectory of an economy within the Indian Context is discussed in a greater detail. This is a paper where the theoretical applications are studied in the context of India. Most of the discussions are divided into two policy regimes; planned regime and neoliberal regime.  During these two policy regimes, how Indian economy had grown and the trajectory chosen to development are discussed in greater detail. Those detailed analysis also covers discussion on agricultural development, industrialization and service sector’s growth. Additionally, Indian labour market, education, health sectors are covered in greater details.  Surprisingly while discussing the Indian context, a paper like Indian economy, doesn’t bring the topic on caste separately. Even while discussing the Indian context, Caste appears to be almost insignificant. This further strengthens the idea that caste as a concept need not be taught at the undergraduate level.   

 Most of the text books followed in the Indian Class rooms are written by the economists who are mostly from developed countries. Therefore the examples used in the text books are mostly from the developed nations. For example, one of the standard micro text book written by Hal R Varian, use the examples of Anchovies and Pepperoni in explaining one of the concepts in consumer theory.  So, while reading the book, Indian students may not relate to this example as anchovies and pepperoni are not popular in Indian context.  The question of relatability (or lack of it) is much more significant (important) for the students from marginal caste or outcastes especially when they are studying consumer theory as some of the examples illustrated in the text books  are not from their lived experience. Therefore the students might feel excluded in the process of learning from books.  Apart from this, the context in which the theory has emerged or the discussion is mostly from the developed nations with which the Indian students are not familiar. It is only towards the end of the course while the students get introduced to the papers like Indian Economy, students get to read Indian authors. Even in those books, ‘caste’ doesn’t appear or even if appears takes a negligible mention. 

Does this silence pose any problem?  Let us focus on who takes economics at the undergraduate level? Alternatively, what is the general perception of the students around the subject? Students consider economics as an extension of science as it is heavily dependent on mathematics, therefore it needs to only be studied by the students who have good knowledge in mathematics and proficiency in the English language. This perception is also partly influenced by the admission criterion most of the undergrad colleges follow in this country that is having a mathematics paper at plus 2 level is mandatory to be eligible for an Economics Hons. In addition to that in most of the undergrad colleges the medium of instruction as well the medium of conducting the exam is in English. These criteria would discourage students who don’t have the access to English education. As it is a well-accepted fact that getting an education at an English medium school is a matter of privilege in this country and majorly the Dalit students of this country would fail to be part of  this category. This criterion itself would pose like a barrier at entry-level for most of the Dalit students. So one could expect that majority of the future generation of economists would be from a upper-caste privileged background. 

Given this scenario, it is important to form an understanding of Indian class rooms. Especially how the issue of caste is perceived in the campus premises and the classrooms.  Even though Indian society is highly divided along the caste line and the age-old oppression mechanism is still operating in various parts of the country, however, for the privileged caste, caste discrimination and caste oppression are things of the past and doesn’t exist and even if it exists, ‘it exists in the rural area’. Caste appears with the veil of reservation in the college university campus premises. Students who take admission through these reserved categories  often face the hostile mentality from other non-reserved category students and sometimes from the upper caste teachers too. The general perceptions around caste and reservations are reserved category students are at the end where they are receiving all the benefits and the unreserved candidates are suffering the most because of this reservation system. Students from upper caste often think that reserved students are meritless and undeserving. Reservation, as well as caste, is perceived as the mechanism to enhance the inequality by taking away the rightful resources from the upper caste and by giving the opportunities and resources to the so-called underserving Dalit students.  In most of the Indian classrooms, this idea that  caste-based reservation accentuates the inequality and produces a meritless inefficient system is dominant.     

So, from the beginning students from the upper caste background would start from their privilege whereas the students from the reserved category would start from the initial understanding that they are meritless and underserving. Since a student from a privilege background hasn’t ever experienced discrimination, she may not recognize and empathize with the understanding of caste based discrimination. Whereas a student from Dalit community who experienced untouchability and who kept hearing that how Dalits are meritless might continuously feel suffocated in the education system. In a way, just by affirmative action/reservation doesn’t continuously address the issue of this disparity within the classroom. Here comes the role of the curriculum which partly could have addressed the disparity within the classroom by letting the otherwise ignorant students sensitize themselves regarding the reality of the society.  

In this divided class rooms, learning the subject  which is totally silent about the issue of caste would be challenging for the dalit students. The lived experience of students plays an important role in learning any concept in a better way as it is always relatable. For instance, an upper caste student might comfortably relate to the example of  choosing  between a car and a horse for the marriage procession of her relatives given the affordability whereas for a Dalit students this choice set might be restricted as the lived experience would say even if you have the money you should not have access to all the commodities because of your caste identity.  

Let us go back to some of the important papers and the concepts  with which I started this note to point out how the learning process itself can be exclusionary for the Dalit students. As mentioned earlier, the undergrad course is heavily based on the marginalist theories or Neoclassical theories where a single human being is taken as a representative of the entire economy to form a theory of consumer and producer. It is in this context, the Indian context would help to raise the question, in a country where the tradition of dehumanization of a certain section of the society is still continuing who will be this representative? Also, in neoclassical theory buying and selling are not restrictive, however, Indian reality shows buyers and sellers from certain caste do face discrimination. Also, the basic definition of demand says, that any want of a human being which is backed by the purchasing power will be known as demand. Can a Dalit person always get access to the commodities even if they have money? There are narratives that shows that for a Dalit Professor getting a house for rent in urban Delhi was difficult because of Dalit identity. This also actually contests the traditional notion of Development which form the basis of the paper called Development Economics where having enough income to raise the standard of living is considered as desirable or the way towards development. However, in this society it shows that even if one has enough income to support lives, sometime getting access to basic necessities like housing become difficult because of the caste identity. 

Does this faulty understanding of caste and major silence in the economics curriculum  create a problem? Here comes the issues of representation of majority. Since majority of the econ undergard students are from upper caste background, and majority of the professors are also from the upper caste background, the reality seems to be alright except in the time of admission when the caste becomes visible through reservation; otherwise go unnoticed throughout the year. So, apparently, it might appear that this disappearance of caste is not at all problematic, however, there are concerns from a societal point of view. The basic concern is the faulty understanding of the reality would always lead to the formulation of  wrong policy. If the future generation of  economists of this country don’t get the opportunity to understand  how caste as an institution is instrumental to keep the reserve army of labour  intact and  how the entire economy is thriving at the cost of this caste inequality, then there won’t be any policy in place  to address this caste based inequality in the Indian society. Caste needs to be understood and how the economics agents and the behavious of the economic agent changes based on this caste based identity needs to be understood to address the issue of the caste based inequality in the society.   

This note shows that caste is missing from  the undergrad  economics syllabus. But Economics as a discipline has taken caste seriously.  Dr. B. R Ambedkar’s work on the issue of caste and Economics provides a different kind of understanding of the Indian Economy. There are body of literature which actually engage with caste in a systematic way. Deshpande(2011) Deshpande(2013), Thorat et al(2021) have done seminal work on the issue of caste. The only area where caste was missing so far  was in  the undergraduate textbook. This gap was recently filled up by the book by Thomas(2021) where he incorporated the idea of caste to provide an understanding of Indian Macroeconomy. Infact, this text book is the first one where the examples are drawn from those literatue which actually represent the marginal caste or outcastes in this society. This in a way make the context familiar and relatable to the students of the economics, specially the dalit students.  In Indian economy, caste dictates what type of work would be taken up by an individual. So, without the understanding of the caste, understanding Indian economy would be inadequate. This disturbing silence around the  caste can be removed, if the universities do recognize the importance of this research and consider to incorporate it in the undergrad syllabus to break the myth and faulty understanding of caste. This would give a proper understanding of Indian economy and also create a sense of empathy among the  students. 

About Author

Dr. Debolina Biswas is a faculty of Economics at the Gurudas College, University of Calcutta. Her research focuses on the issues of inequality, growth, and development in India.

References

Deshpande, A. (2011). Grammar of Caste: economic Discrimination in Contemporary India . New Delhi: Oxfor.

Parkes, J., & Harris, B. M. (2002). The Purpose of a Syllabus. College Teaching, Spring, 55-61.

Thomas, A. (2021). Macroeconomics; An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University of Press.

Thorat, S., Madheswaran, S., & Vani, B. (2021). Employment Discrimination and Its Impact on Poverty Caste and Labour Market. Economic and Political Weekly, 55-61.