Inequalities in the Process of Agriculturalists Learning Non agricultural Skills

Abstract

India has been moving out of agriculture, reflected in the share of agriculture in Real Gross Value Added declining from 64.6 per cent in 1950-51 to 18.0 per cent in 2017-18. The extent of the movement out of agriculture was also seen in the number of migrants affected by the lockdown during the pandemic. The movement of millions of workers out of agriculture generates a demand for learning non-agricultural skills. This raises a series of questions, beginning with what are the processes of learning involved when agriculturalists acquire non-agricultural skills? Are there inequalities in these processes of learning non-agricultural skills? Do inequalities in learning these skills affect access to occupations? Does the learning contribute to innovation? How does uncertainty affect the entire arrangement, especially after a shock like the COVID crisis? newline newlineThe thesis answers these questions through insights gained from a household survey and an ethnographic study of a village in Ramgarh district of Jharkhand. It demonstrates that despite the emergence of numerous formal skill development establishments (such as polytechnics and ITI colleges and educational foundations) in the region, there was a clear preference for informal learning. The difficulty in accessing formal learning settings increased the preference for informal learning at the workplace. Differences in accessing the workplace led to inequalities in learning skills. The inequalities in learning skills limited the ability of some individuals and groups to tap jobs created by rural transformation. This contributed to self-employment, with a couple of those left behind in the village innovating vehicles to carry scrap. Some others who were also unable to get the jobs generated by the transformation, resorted to illegal livelihoods through the sale of country liquor or by stealing coal from open pit coal mines. In such an unequal situation, the emergence of any uncertain event, especially as a shock like the COVID-19 pandemic, disrupted the entire arrangement.