Demographic Profile Of Scheduled Castes Of Odisha

Abstract

The Indian social system is both stratified and segmentary. Its main and the most dominant component, the Hindu society is segmented into several castes and sub-castes. The hall mark of the caste society is its structural stratification. Castes are hierarchically graded on the basis of the prevailing concept of purity and pollution in the social order in which each occupies a specific position maintaining social distance from others depending on its rank in the total social order. The Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra categories representing the hierarchical fourfold Vedic varna system constitute the class of savarna (clean caste) Hindus as differentiated from the Fifth Order of Outcastes called Asavarna or Avarna meaning outside the four varnas. The latter group has been designated by a diversified nomenclature connoting Unclean or Impure Castes. Ironically these names imply a condition of being underprivileged and refer to the class of people who on account of their supposedly, lowly birth, defiling habits and occupations belonged to inferior jatis, remained depressed for ages and constituted the lowest stratum of the Hindu social order. Placed outside the varna system they languished in the periphery but not away from the system.The latestofficial term, Scheduled Caste (SC) was first coined by Simon Commission and incorporated in Government of India Act, 1935. Subsequently it found place in the Indian Constitution. Now the SCs enjoy a special Constitutional status that entitles them to several benefits of protection, promotion, welfare and development brought about by a host of legislation, policies and programmes. These special provisions and safeguards incorporated in the Indian Constitution especially for the SCs are meant to ensure their systematic and faster development while protecting them against all form of injustice. The State of Odisha has a unique position in the country in regards of the concentration and share of SC population. According to the census 2011, the Scheduled Castes in Odisha constituted 17.1% of the States total population while the corresponding figure for the country was 16.6%. There are 93 SC communities spread all over Odisha. In view of the significance of SCs in Odisha an attempt has been made in this book to compile and analyze the available data on size, distribution, composition and growth as well as the socio-cultural aspects of the SCs of Odisha since, such a data base is not available at present. While the socio-cultural data has been gathered from various secondary sources, the population data has come from Census. Hopefully, interested readers may find this book useful.