How Dalit Entrepreneurs Fight Caste With Capital

As a member of the Dalit community, the 28-year-old feels acutely the lack of capital flowing from family or community networks. “Like the Marwaris, this kind of support would have come in handy when my father suffered a heart attack and was short of cash,” he says.

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The case of Biswas is an example of how much extra effort Dalit entrepreneurs have to put into doing business. But, on balance, does capital outpace caste? Yes and no.

Statistics say that even after 75 years of independence, Dalits have not got an equal share in Indian capitalism. Only 11.2% of non-farm owned establishments are owned by Scheduled Castes (SC), data from the Sixth Economic Census 2013 shows. This is much less than their share of 16.6 per cent of the total population of India as per the 2011 census. Even this is mainly due to their concentration in relatively small firms.

The 73rd round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises conducted in 2015-16 shows that scheduled castes account for 12.5 per cent of micro enterprises, which is 5.5% for small and medium enterprises. is less than 0.01%. The low level of wealth in the community, due to their high share in less wealth, impedes their ability to take risks.

Nitin Mehndia, 38, who runs a modular furniture company in Gurugram says, “Only those of us who have got the ‘business bug’, or are ‘crazy’, can take risks without any safety net. “I quit my job and took the plunge with 7,000 as seed money. Nowadays people talk of ‘calculated risk’, but the question of any calculation arises only when you have some capital to start with.”

He worked for an auto parts company before taking the leap of faith in 2009. He started out as a labor contractor for piece work such as plumbing, electricals and carpentry in large residential and commercial contracts. Gradually, he started focusing on the furniture part, and in 2015 established his company Universal Pride Interior Pvt Ltd, which had a high turnover 7 crore in 2021-22, and employs about 45 employees. It claims to have the likes of Indiabulls, Emaar, Spaze and Godrej as its customers.

Biswas started executing solar power projects soon after graduating in 2016 and ran an e-bike company at his alma mater Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. He has now ridden over 2,000 electric three-wheelers and employs 22 people.

In an ideal world, capitalism and urbanization should have loosened the shackles of caste. But a research paper in 2019 suggested that caste affiliation determines occupational behavior, even if the results are suboptimal.

The experiences of Mehndia and Vishwas show that this is not the case. Mehndia says, “I did my first residential project deal with a Mr. Pathak, who had come to me in a low-class, blue-collar colony. He had faith in me despite the dilapidated condition of my office.” Now, most of his clients, many “upper-caste”, know that he comes from a Scheduled Caste (SC) community. Biswas has no experience carving caste on the business table, and enjoys credit facilities with both Marwaris and Punjabis.

Munmun Biswas, 42, who founded Indiloom in 2017, says, “Tagging any of our clothes that recall Dalit patterns or designs will not be strategically correct or viable unless people are more inclusive Go. Printed clothing for some of the famous brands in the fashion industry. Wanting to create a brand like Fabindia, he cited the controversy over last year’s Diwali being called Jashn-e-Riyaz to make his point.

The state support has proved useful for the Dalit entrepreneurs. The Government of India provided a Special Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Castes in 2014-15, which currently has a fund of 616 crores. outside the, 450 crore has already been sanctioned by SC entrepreneurs to 120 companies with at least 51% shareholding. Munmun also received 1.5 Crore, in 2019 under this fund with a repayment tenure of 10 years and an interest rate of 4%. She plans to raise another. 3 crore to open a big factory by the end of this year.

But government funding alone cannot sustain the campaign within the community.

Some Dalit entrepreneurs are raising money through private capital. Biswas has been able to tap into his IIT alumni network, which is not the case with others. With $38.5 billion, India saw the third largest amount of VC investment in the world in 2021 after the US and China. Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is trying to identify private VC firms or investors to specifically cater to Dalit entrepreneurs. , says Munmun, who heads its Eastern Region chapter. Easy fund access will be crucial for Dalit startups turning to FabIndia, IKEA or Uber. Hopefully it won’t take us 75 years to get there.

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