Snakes and ladders: rethinking social mobility in post-reform India. Issue 3 (2nd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kaur, Ravinder; Sundar, Nandini
• Is Part Of: Contemporary South Asia. Volume 24:Issue 3(2016)
• Page Start: 229
• Page End: 241
• Publication Date: 2016-07-02
• Subjects: social mobility -- inequality -- neoliberalism -- capitalism -- class -- caste -- economic reforms -- India; South Asia -- Periodicals; 954
• DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2016.1203864
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0958-4935

Abstract

Abstract : The question of social mobility in a terrain of increasing inequality has gained particular urgency in post-reform India. We approach social mobility not as a one-way ascent toward the top, rather as a risk-laden enterprise prone to fluctuations that include both incremental gains and the possibility of sliding downwards. We argue that to 'move up the ladder' is not merely a matter of individual choice or hard work in the face of odds as free-market believers have long held. It is as much an outcome of collective political bargaining, privileges that dominant class and caste status affords, access to resources and, indeed, occasional luck. Two propositions follow. First, we suggest that the state remains albeit as a reluctant enabler of social mobility in the age of markets. Second, the participation in the new economy hinges also upon one's ability to 'dress up' for the part, to be able to craft one's look as if one belonged to spaces – work or leisure – that one desires to inhabit. The work of appearances, we suggest, does not operate at individual levels alone, it also encompasses the nation's spectacular projection of itself in the global political economy.