The ease of doing business in India is not for everyone. A study published in the journal, PLOS One, has revealed that social capital — a measure of which and how many influential people one knows — widely considered as beneficial in multiple spheres, including business, does little to counter the stigma and enhance the incomes of Dalit business owners. In fact, there exists an income gap of 15%-18% between Dalit business owners and others that can only be attributed to caste, overriding such other determinants as urban or rural location, education, family background or land ownership. This dispels the assumption of inherent meritocracy and caste agnosticism in India’s free market. While it is true that the opening up of the Indian economy enabled a small number of Dalit entrepreneurs to leave behind their traditional, caste-determined careers and make it big, the majority continue to confront institutional and social discrimination that translates into a share of business ownership that is not proportionate to their population. For instance, according to National Sample Survey data, Dalits own only 12.5% of micro-enterprises, 5.5% of small-enterprises and less than 0.01% of medium-enterprises in India despite accounting for nearly 17% of the country’s population as per the 2011 census. Women entrepreneurs from the Dalit community — a precarious few — are doubly deprived. Reports show that one factor contributing to the marginalisation of Dalits in entrepreneurship is the prejudicial outlook that perceives the community to be untrustworthy and succeeding in life only because of government benefits instead of business acumen and merit.

Even three decades after economic liberalisation, India’s business and commerce sites remain beholden to the pulls and pressures of caste identity. State support — the Central government endowed a special venture capital fund for the scheduled castes in 2014-15 which was utilised by some 120 companies with at least 51% shareholding by SC entrepreneurs — could have helped counter the social stigma to some extent. But such benefits often do not reach the intended beneficiaries owing to entrenched caste biases; the unused cor­pus of the Stand Up India initiative, a credit scheme for SCs, STs and women, is one example of this. Ease of doing business ratings should consider factoring in a social vulnerability index. Long-term strategies to unleash the potential of Dalit entrepreneurs will not come to fruition without interventions that aim to eliminate the pecking order embedded in Indian society.