Page 22 - The Economist Asia January 2018

The Economist January 27th 2018
22 Asia
2 jobs no one else will take, such as dispos- says Mr Kapur. “I don’t know who has ShoppingCentre in Pyongyang, the capital,
ing of dead animals and cleaning sewers. touched my food anymore, and pretty Naegohyang’s “7.27” cigarettes compete
In 2017 alone some 90 sewer-cleaners, all soon I stop caring.” with “Hanggong” (meaning “airline”)
Dalits, were fished out dead from India’s Martin Macwan, a Dalit activist and brand, produced byAirKoryo, the national
drains, an activist group reports. So much one of the authors of the Gujarat study, carrier. The latter, too, appears to be ex-
are Dalits associated with tidying up other cites another example ofchange. When he panding into several industries, from mak-
peoples’ mess that anthropologists have started a service offering free legal advice ing potted pheasant and canned mackerel
identified caste attitudes as the main rea- 20 yearsago all hisclientswere Dalits. Oth- to operatingtaxis and petrol stations.
son for rural India’s uniquely high rate of ers did inquire, but at first balked when Mr Such conglomerates are often com-
open defecation. It was found that many Macwan told them theycould have hisser- pared to the chaebol ofSouth Korea, but are
upper-caste villagers, including Dalits of vices free of charge if they would drink a best understood as “a private-public part-
higher sub-caste than the drain-cleaners, glass ofwater in a Dalit home. Now a third nership” says Chris Green of International
see toilets as “polluting” to their homes. ofhis clients are non-Dalit. Crisis Group, a think-tank. Under North
Dalit parents regularly protest that schools Indians will not turn liberal overnight, Korean law the government is the sole eco-
have singled out their children to clean toi- says Mr Kapur. It happens in stages. The nomic operator and private business is
lets. They also complain that state schools first is when people stop noticing who is banned. Although these companies are
assign numbers to plates when handing Dalit; the second when they stop caring. nominallyowned bythe state, theyare run
out free lunches, lest a child whose family The third is when they actively want to do mainly privately and rely, at least in part,
insists on ritual separation from Dalits be away with untouchability. “I think we are on private funding.
served on “polluted” crockery. nowsomewhere between the firstand sec- After a famine caused the state ration-
In eastern and southern parts of India ond steps,” he says. 7 ing system to collapse in the 1990s, Kim
the proportion of respondents who say Jong Il, Mr Kim’s father and predecessor,
they consider Dalits polluting can be as turned a blind eye to small markets called
low as1%. When asked more specific ques- jangmadang, where ordinary North Kore-
tions about interacting with Dalits, how- ans bought and sold goods. Ministries
ever, these numbers tend to rise, dramati- were later given rights to trade in certain
cally so in less enlightened parts of India. goods, creating opportunities for entrepre-
In the central state of Madhya Pradesh neurs down the supply chain. The govern-
some 53% of respondents to one survey ment requires some state-owned compa-
said their family tried to avoid certain nies and agricultural workers to provide
forms ofcontact with Dalits; surveys ofru- fixed quotas of goods, but allows them to
ral areasin nearbystatesfound rates of65% use the rest oftheiroutput as they see fit.
or more. Although 55% of Indians say they Not all the conglomerates grew out of
do notmind people ofdifferentcastes mar- ministries: some started as private compa-
rying one another, only 4% say they have nies but became big enough to require
married someone from outside theircaste. state patronage. North Korea’s monied
A study in 2010 ofsome 1,589 villages in elite provide them with cash and cream off
the western state of Gujarat identified 98 most of the profits. The overseeing minis-
practices, from preventing access to public try provides protection in return for a
wells to obliging Dalits to play drums at cut—a tax, in effect. It is usually a fixed sum
weddings, and ranked them in order of based on expected profits.
prevalence. It found, for example, that in Sanctions, ramped up in recent years,
91% of villages Dalits were not allowed in have further encouraged the development
non-Dalit temples, and in 98% of them of conglomerates, says Andray Abraha-
non-Dalits would not serve tea to Dalits in North Korea’s conglomerates mian ofthe Honolulubranch ofthe Center
their homes. The survey also found a high for Strategic and International Studies, a
prevalence of similar practices among dif- From planes to think-tank. He points to the example of
ferent sub-castes ofDalits. Myanmar. Sanctionsthatblocked access to
Yet such practices, although still wide- mackerel foreign goods and investment led, he ar-
spread, are declining. Recent surveys sug- gues, to the domination ofthe economy by
gest that barely a quarter of families still the well-connected. In North Korea, for ex-
Seoul
follow them in some form, compared with Anewbreed ofcompanyis helping to ample, itisoften relativesofpowerful min-
virtually all Hindus before independence. prop up the nucleardictatorship isters and bureaucrats who own trading
Devesh Kapur, an economistatthe Univer- companies. Jang Song Thaek, Mr Kim’s un-
sity ofPennsylvania, recalls visiting a rural UNIQUE and sweet taste,” says a cle, who was executed in 2013 for treason,
area in the 1970s. “The kind of language “A poster describing a new brand of controlled fisheries, coal mines and ex-
that was used and the whole emphasis on soju, a local firewater, made by Naego- ports ofotherminerals.
purity and pollution was just nothing like hyang. The North Korean company started Unlike his father, Kim Jong Un has not
as relaxed as we see now.” out making cigarettes (reportedly puffed tried to roll backthe developmentof a priv-
MrKapursuggests it is just as important on by Kim Jong Un, the country’s dictator). ate economy or large, sprawling compa-
to consider the “intensity” of practice as It has branched out into a thicket of unre- nies. Indeed, since 2013 he has stressed the
the prevalence. Even among families who lated items, including playing cards, sani- parallel development of nuclear weapons
admit to prejudices such as refusing to let tarytowels, sportskitand electronics. Itad- and the economy. He has talked about
Dalits into their homes, or to use the same vertises them in the stadium of the making more domestically and giving
utensils, it is likely that the number ofsuch women’s football team it sponsors. choice to local “consumers”. In 2014 the
taboos has diminished over time. Acceler- Naegohyang, which means“MyHome- law was changed to allow managers of
atingurbanisation, bringingwith ita much land”, is one ofwhat appears to be a grow- state-owned firms to trade and create joint
wider degree of anonymity, is an impor- ing number of large and diversified busi- ventures with foreigners, and to accept fi-
tant factor. “Take the fast-food industry,” nesses in North Korea. In Kwangbok Area nancingfrom private investors at home. 1