Residential Segregation and Inequitable Access to Services of Dalit Muslims – Dalit, Muslim communities in India segregated as ‘black’ in America: Study Pi News

The gap in the country is not just between the rich and the poor. There is also a deep divide between Dalit settlements and general settlements. A similar disparity exists between Muslim settlements and general settlements. This gap is actually related to the access of objects to these settlements. These settlements are distinguished from general or core settlements because they are inhabited by a large number of people belonging to the same communities. Dalit settlements are predominantly Dalits and Muslim settlements are predominantly Muslim. This gap exists in both rural and urban areas. In such settlements, there is no access to even basic civic facilities such as schools. This was revealed in the research of Development Data Lab.

By Muhammad

The Development Data Lab has produced a report titled “Residential Segregation and Inequitable Access to Local Public Services in India”. Based on a study of 15 million homes. The report says it is not a current study and its assessment was done a decade ago. It said the data was collected at the contiguous household level at the national level covering the whole of India during 2011-13.

The authors of this study are: Sam Asher, founder of the Development Data Lab and a professor at Imperial College London, Paul Novosad, co-founder and professor at Dartmouth College, researcher Kritarth Jha, professor Anjali Adukiya of the University of Chicago, and Brandon Joll Tan.

The report notes that villages in India have historically been segregated by caste. Marginal groups are deprived of rural social circles and facilities and live in remote areas. According to the report, an attempt was made to study whether the situation would be different in cities and whether the market would bridge the social divide.

Administrative data on 15 million urban and rural neighborhoods were used to derive this inequality index, the research report said. It was found that similar groups live in the neighborhoods of the city.

STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT SETTLEMENTS FOR SCHEDULED CASTES, NAMELY DALITS, VARY IN URBAN AS WELL AS RURAL AREAS. FOR MUSLIMS, THIS ISOLATION IS EVEN WORSE IN URBAN AREAS.

“SC and Muslim communities are as segregated as black communities in American cities,” Paul Novosad, one of the authors of the study, wrote in the X collection.

He noted, “Muslims are more likely to live in neighborhoods with Muslim neighbors. 26% of urban Muslims live in neighborhoods where their neighbors are more than 80% Muslim. 17% of urban SCs live in neighborhoods with more than 80% SCs.” The situation is the same in rural areas.

What are the amenities in these areas?

Paul Novosad said: “Public services in cities are less in Scheduled Caste and Muslim dominated areas. Settlements with 100% Muslim neighbors are only half as likely to have a high school as non-Muslim settlements.

It further states: “When we look at SCs, localities with an average number of SC neighbors performed better, but localities with the highest number of SC households had higher secondary school was less likely.” He said a comparison was made between SC, Muslim and common neighborhood settlements within a city.

 “We conducted such an analysis for a wide range of public services – primary schools, medical clinics, water and electricity infrastructure, closed drainage,” he says. According to him, the results were the same. Within cities, public services are very poor in areas with high SC and Muslim population.

According to the report, the condition of children is worse in Dalit and Muslim areas, which are completely isolated. The education of children in such settlements is less than one full year compared to normal settlements. Of the roughly 9-10 years of general education for 17-18-year-olds, children from all-Dalit settlements have about 1.6 years less education, and about 2.2 years less than children from all-Muslim settlements.

housing allocation and unequal access to services by Dalit Muslims – Satya Hindi

Developmental Information Lab

Paul Novosad said he does not study Scheduled Tribes because the paper focuses on urban areas and only 4% of Scheduled Tribes live in urban areas. On OBCs, he said, “Given the data we have, it has not been possible to identify neighborhoods that are predominantly OBCs.”

Courtesy : PI News

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