review on the shelf
A WILLINGNESS TO STRUGGLE
Ground down by growth – tribe, caste, class and inequality in 21st century India, by Alpa Shah et al, published by Pluto Press (RRP £16.99)
Based on in-depth field research, this work about the massed ranks of poverty witnessed across diverse Indian regions makes for deeply unpleasant reading.
That is particularly so for those stuck at base level who are descended from the country’s lowest castes, the Adivasis and Dalits. These constitute 1 in 25 of the world’s population. Less educated than other Indian social groups they were previously termed the ‘Untouchables’ and forced to live in segregated areas.
Indian independence and the expansion of capitalism was supposed to bring about economic growth and modernity to eliminate caste and tribes.
Yet despite the Indian economy being one of the fastest growing this century, the future is bleak.
Not only for the Adivasis and Dalits, but the majority in a country where agriculture employs half the workforce and where around 700m are affected by internal seasonal labour migration, which blocks many from accessing social welfare benefits.
Unless the masses organise effectively to oppose the predominant ethos of combining the privatisation of public services and reduced rights, workers will continue to lose out. The statistics in the book clearly demonstrate that reductions in poverty in an economy rising by 6 per cent annually between 1999 and 2010, were minuscule.
Meanwhile in the Western Ghats, on tea estates such as Hill Valley, Kerala, the plantation association was successful in increasing the plucking rate from 14kg to 21kg in 2011, and to 25kg in 2016.
Furthermore, the numbers employed permanently, bringing with it access to housing, medical care and sick leave, had declined from two-thirds to under a quarter.
Eventually, 800 tea workers, mainly women, took strike action in the Munnar tea belt. This inspired action elsewhere – including that of rubber plantation workers. All of which forced the corrupt trade union and political representatives into extending support.
The strikes, which were widely publicised including on the BBC, shoved the government into opening a substantial relief fund for improvements in the labour conditions of tea plantation workers. It was a wonderful victory.
More are needed, and the book shows a willingness to struggle exists. In the Bhadrachalam Scheduled Area, Telangana, in the villages surrounding the Indian Tobacco Company, workers have raised problems with their health, particularly lung concerns.
Other concerns came from those who had been working at a paper factory, built by a dominant farming caste group on Adivasi land that should have been legally protected from such developments.
Yet, as the final chapter The Struggles Ahead shows the most vulnerable and exploited of the Indian workforce amongst the Adivasis and Dalits face a bleak future as they have almost no protection or social security of any kind.
38 uniteLANDWORKER Spring 2026
n By Mark Metcalf
Alamy
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